Restaurant Review

The Ivy Liverpool Brasserie

31 Castle St, L2 4TA

By Robin Brown | £ (Cool Britannia menu)

Brand extension is an unlovely phrase, really. Car manufacturers do it (hello, Range Rover Sport). Richard Branson made a career out of it. And the Hilton, once a byword for upmarket hotels, is now plastered on £50-a-night efforts near airports. I’m sceptical.

This brings me to The Ivy Liverpool Brasserie on Castle Street, an upmarket restaurant from the people behind, well, The Ivy (now owned by Abu Dhabi-based luxury hospitality investor Diafa, amid much talk of IP and ‘hospitality umbrellas’). It’s in the old Bank of England building, derelict for decades, now spectacularly reborn.

Walking there now, particularly at night, is a useful reminder not only of how far that area – and the city – have come in many respects, but also how many bistro-brasserie options there are around here (alas, my old NatWest Bank is a trendy wine bar now). Step inside the new Ivy and you can’t deny the turnaround from the drab, rather austere interior left behind when TSB exited the building over 25 years ago.

Instead is what I can only refer to as Greco-Roman bling – a sort of maximalist Homeric epic in which the gods have discovered interior design, complete with three thrusting fake trees and plenty of genuine foliage. The gold-and-green look of the original Ivy is present and correct, along with the Harlequin stained glass, stunning typography and tailored staff uniforms. There’s real wow factor, though your mileage may vary. Service? Exquisite. It’s another area where British hospitality has improved exponentially. Eat here and you’ll be treated like royalty, albeit in a Baz Luhrmann film.

Sadly I’m here to review a new offering, essentially an early bird menu called ‘Cool Britannia’, available most days until 6.30pm. It’s inspired by ‘the culture and creativity of the nineties’ and features dishes such as steak and chips, and onion soup. What this has to do with Britpop and its attendant frivolities I’m not sure (disappointingly we didn’t get a ‘Roll With It’ option on the menu, though there was some very pleasant sourdough).

Price for two courses? £19.96 – because that era was the apex of Cool Britannia, presumably. If you want a dessert that’s an extra £8.95 – perhaps to commemorate 895, when King Alfred the Great foiled a Viking invasion by blockading the River Lea (look, I checked, and this really did happen). Themed menus rarely work and the more elaborate the concept, the less likely they are to make sense. It’s why the Great British Menu and Bake Off – with their ‘how does this Eton Mess / cheese scone represent the Peasants’ Revolt / disappearance of Lord Lucan?’ shtick – have long since disappeared up their own soggy bottoms.

What’s more, the food is… OK? Compared to the modern European stylings of the à la carte it feels like a poor relation. You can’t really dress up a chicken supreme or sweet potato curry any other way, though two courses for £20 is admittedly eye-catching. The highlight was an oh-so-sticky toffee pudding, drowned in a disgraceful caramel sauce and served with a scoop of cool clotted cream, all delivered under a cloche to preserve the scent. We also went off-menu to choose a chocolate bombe, which had drama to match the decor.

I’m pretty nonplussed by restrictive menus that are cheaper, but sadder: the ‘affordable housing back entrance in a posh building’ of the restaurant world. You buy access to the lovely places but are compelled to eat the downscaled food. If you’re going, skip the nostalgia act and plump for the main event; one great meal out is always better value than two mediocre scoffs. I get the appeal of dining out on the cheap but, even in these straitened financial times, better to see Oasis once than Ocean Colour Scene twice.

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