Saturday, 30 July 2016

Eating at The Ivy. Twice!

This week I was lucky enough to score not one but two (!) invites to the shake-down shifts at the soon-to-be-trading Ivy Brasserie in Clifton, Bristol.

The Ivy has five locations in London and they have recently taken over the former Nat-West building in Bristol. A pal of mine is pals with the Sous chef and thus we had a good shout at coming up Donalds on the lottery of name-gathering emails the team had gathered. We scored two invites with one for breakfast and one the day after for lunch. Four of us had breakfast and a day later two of us sampled lunch. For breakfast it was me, Mike, Che and Jemma B. Che and I went back the day after for lunch. There were some minor and easy stipulations: we had to try different menu items across the party and we had to pay for drinks, but the food was wholly FOC! We were also asked for feedback via survey-monkey and I happily penned 500 words. No harm to sing for my supper.

The service was open, fine, unstuffy, genuine and with the humility of a new team coming together to try it all out on real customers who knew the score. In fact it was excellent. I thought this was a great way to spread the word and work in a real situation; no brand damage and only good  exposure of the whole thing. I scoffed mightily and loved every minute. My appetite for scoff and for a well laid table was truly satiated!

All day breakfast and fish and chips one day after the next. Great fun!


















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