Jade in Chelsea

My first trip to Ivy Asia was well overdue, but despite my excitement, it didn’t happen in a manner befitting objectively discussing pan-Asian food in a dining room that treads the fine line between garish and stunning. We arrived famished, and frankly, by the time I sat down, I would have eaten anything the chefs threw at me.

The day began at the Tate Modern. My sister-in-law was in town, and whenever this happens, London’s transport stops working in exactly the right places, to make our adventures insufferable. We had booked Ivy Asia in Chelsea, and the District Line wasn’t working. This meant a U-shaped odyssey on a heavily delayed Jubilee Line (“not enough trains, love“, a platform attendant nonchalantly explained to an angry granny), and then the Victoria Line, plunged into darkness because of power interruptions. We decided to walk from Victoria, and of course, the minute we exited the station, the heavens opened. The rain stopped by the time we reached King’s Road, but the European’s tiny umbrella hardly helped one of us, let alone three. We dried off by window shopping and actual shopping.

Save for a slice of brownie at the Tate Modern, the sogginess of the day had distracted us from eating, and we were ravenous. Luckily, the inherent difficulties in finding a table at Ivy Asia meant that we’d ended up booking at the very random time of half four, and before we knew it, it was time to eat.

Ivy Asia is a feast for the eyes, which was lovely but didn’t help our stomachs one bit. It’s king of a celebration of pan-Asian design, but created in such an over-the-top way that it’s almost insultingly ironic. The uniforms are tailored and jaw-dropping, and the floor, designed to look like jade, glows a lurid fluorescent green. Napkins are rolled and fastened with a dragon-shaped ring. The bar is bedecked in gold, the glassware is beautiful, and depending on where you’re sitting, the ceiling is covered with either cherry blossoms or Chinese lanterns. I needed the loo. It’s a small restroom for a large restaurant, and there was a queue for the two urinals. There’s a third, but they’ve stood a statue of a smirking samurai at it.

Back in reality, we perused the menu. “It’s a sharing concept“, the host said. Ugh, I hate this service style now. It’s been done to death. The prices are high, but not awful. There’s a lot of choice, such as sushi, sashimi, small plates like gyoza and salads, larger plates like a duck and lobster fried rice, a robata beef section, and plates to share between two, like aromatic half-duck. There are tasting menus that give you the full experience, so the three of us took the ‘premium’ menu at £sixty-five per person.

I’m delighted and, to be honest, surprised to say that Ivy Asia isn’t a polished turd. The food was amazing, but as I said, were we in the right frame of mind since we were ravenous? I don’t know, but we enjoyed most of what was served. Wontons with yoghurt and Szechuan dips were gone in sixty seconds as the three of us hoovered them up. For me though, the seared beef tataki with ponzu dressing was the star of the meal, the soft slithers of beef melting in the mouth against the treacle umami dressing.

My word, they can nail sushi too! Yellowtail rolls with asparagus were clean, refreshing and well-made. Fresh salmon sashimi was given the Ivy touch with a hint of truffle miso. The quality of the fish was such that the marinade was as needless as the bowl of smoking dry ice, on which they were served.

Nevertheless, by the time the sushi and sashimi were finished, we were getting worried there wouldn’t be enough food. I’m not even exaggerating. For three people, let alone three hungry people, the portions were lean. We asked the waiter for a plate of that amazing-sounding fried rice to share. “Uh-uh, you’ll definitely not need that“. His response was just shy of outright refusal. Taking his word for it, we soldiered on to the hot starters of pork and chicken gyoza and Ebi prawn tempura. The tempura was lovely enough but lacked the showiness of the previous courses, which I was unashamedly buying into by now. To an extent, the gyoza also appeared in front of us a little on the beige side, but they were redeemed by virtue of being the best gyoza I’ve ever tried. With the dumpling having a decent integrity and a plump, spicy filling that didn’t explode into watery misery, I was in heaven. And to our relief, by now, we were filling up, just in time for the mains.

Cod, slow roasted with a 48-hour miso was lovely but felt a little derivative, given that Nobu offers something almost exactly the same, but frankly better. I really enjoyed the salt and pepper beef fillet. “It’s tough“, The European said (referencing the texture of the beef, not dealing with the glare from the restaurant’s floor). I’m not so sure. It seemed succulent to me and paired well with a lime and pink pepper dressing. The mains were served with – I counted them – three pieces of bok choy and an laughably small pot of rice. Did we need the fried rice, I asked her highness?

“We didn’t need it, but I would have eaten it“.

Another plume of dry ice heralded the arrival of the dessert plate, called ‘Moon Dragon’. Choux buns were filled with chocolate cream. ‘Filled’ is a little generous of me, but then again someone needs to be in this restaurant. Some of them were filled, some of them weren’t. The promised honeycomb cheesecake with yuzu caramel was three petits fours. There was a twist of vanilla ice cream and a miniscule pot of chocolate sauce that we had no idea what to do with.

OK, so desserts aren’t Ivy Asia’s thing, and that’s fine. We opted for a second round of cocktails, which were wonderful. My Mango Sling was a dangerously smooth drink with a million kinds of booze in it. The European had a Thai Green Curry, made with tequila, coconut, lime and chilli. It was one of the best cocktails she had ever had (her words, not mine). The sister-in-law happily sucked down two Xian Spritz, an ostentatious concoction of gin, yuzu, turmeric, passion fruit, coconut, and bubbly.

I loved the Ivy Asia experience and don’t regret the menu choice; it’s a wonderfully lazy way to try everything the restaurant does and allows you the mental capacity to drink in the contacts and the surroundings. That said, I worried that as we got fuller and fuller, the food appeared to get less tasty. Were our minds indeed initially occupied by fifteen thousand steps across the city and no food? Would we go back, mainly to try the duck and lobster fried rice and more gyoza, and be equally happy? I don’t know, and the restaurant is a little too expensive to take the risk. We might go back one day, as it puts on a good show and gets you grinning from ear to ear.

With London transport necessitating a detour home, we ended up walking from Chelsea to Battersea Power Station to take the train from there. I began to feel hungry once more as we changed on the Lizzie Line at Tottenham Court Road. “It’s because you’re a greedy pig“, the European explained. At home, I stuffed a few handfuls of tasty rice crackers into my mouth before collapsing into bed, proof that great Asian food doesn’t need to be ostentatious or cost the earth.

Three premium menus and a few rounds of cocktails cost just over £three hundred.