THE IVY CHELSEA GARDEN, CHELSEA

The Ivy Chelsea Garden opened up last month on the old site of Henry J Beans on the King's road. I used to be a huge fan of Henry J Beans as it was where I had my first ever date (many years ago) and also the venue of many fun nights out. However now as The Ivy Chelsea Garden, it couldn't be more different…..it looks amazing! It really has the wow factor - very light, luxurious, lots of green and plenty of mirrors everywhere and the la piece de resistance is the beautiful garden and terrace at the back. 

Already the restaurant and bar are super popular and it is hard to get a table - the restaurant is open for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea and supper. My friend Ceri and I decided to take a chance and go for an early supper on Saturday night at 6.30pm. Thankfully we lucked out (we had read that some tables for set aside for walk-ins but weren't sure if this was true or not)!

The menu is pretty vast and Ceri and I actually had to sit in silence for a bit in order to decide what to eat - so much to choose from!

For starter I had smoked salmon and crab and chive cream with sourdough toast. This was well presented and tasted very fresh however it was also extremely bland. They either forgot to add the chive cream or only added such a minuscule amount that you could not taste it. Shame as it has the potential to be a simple yet delicious dish.

Ceri's starter was much more successful - she ordered tuna carpaccio with spiced avocado, lime, creme fraiche and coriander shoots. This was incredible - the tuna literally melted in your mouth with an explosion of flavours - I will definitely be having this next time.

For mains we both went for the Chelsea Garden fishcake with creamed spinach, a soft poached hen's egg and hollandaise sauce. I have had the fishcake at the Ivy's sister restaurants and always been a fan. It was big and tasty and went really well with the hollandaise. Ceri found it heavy and too much though (she is not a little piggy like me)!

The pudding menu is a delight and we were definitely going to have something - unfortunately the restaurant had other ideas and tried to hurry us off our table despite never being given a time limit when we sat down and we had only been there 1 hour and 15 minutes! So much for the impeccable service.

Anyway I ordered the melting chocolate bombe with milk foam, vanilla ice cream, with a honeycomb centre and hot salted caramel sauce. This was phenomenal!! Probably one of the best puddings I have ever had - I cannot rate it highly enough. I will be coming back here whenever I need a pudding fix (which is often).

Ceri order the dark treacle tart with clotted cream ice cream and Jersey pouring cream. Unfortunately this was a let down as it was so cold - it tasted like it had literally just been pulled out of the fridge or freezer. Maybe it was because they wanted our table, that they didn't prepare it properly or maybe it just isn't one of their best dishes - who knows?

No time for tea and our meal was over. We both agreed that the setting was beautiful and outstanding, other than the timing incident, service was very efficient and friendly - the food was mixed however it was very reasonably priced for such a restaurant. I will be back though - I am keen to try the breakfast and the burger and I "need" to have that pudding again…..now!! Taxi!!

The Ivy Chelsea Garden

197 King's Road

London

SW3 5ED

Tel: 020 3301 0300