Family Feasting Under Faux Flora: Ivy Asia Leeds
Easter: That chocolatey bank holiday foisted upon us Brits when the weather is still resolutely shit. Why couldn't they schedule it when we might actually enjoy a day off? Say, summer, when a trip to the seaside offers opportunity to see sunburnt people engage in alcohol-fuelled disagreements.
This Easter break I wanted to spend some time with my family, including two very young children, to make up for a gruelling period at work. The mission: somewhere kid-friendly that might still provide us with memorable cuisine.
My five-year-old exists in a culinary paradox. On holiday in Tuscany, he enthusiastically tackled complex fish preparations with the gusto of a miniature Ottolenghi. At home, most dinner times are a McBoring slog through beige landscapes of acceptable carbohydrates. What's needed, clearly, is context – new surroundings unlock new tastes.
Enter Ivy Asia, that chain of restaurants where the décor budget exceeds the GDP of several small nations. Having previously been well entertained at their Brighton outpost (on someone else's corporate credit card, naturally), I decided the Leeds branch might sufficiently discombobulate my children into culinary adventure.
Let me make myself clear right away: although Ivy Asia flirts with excess – jade-green illuminated floors that would make John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever dance sequence look understated, an intentionally positioned disk jockey where you might expect a teppan chef, and a ceiling festooned with an explosion of pink cherry blossoms so vivid they threaten to upstage the food – I genuinely like it. The whole spectacle doesn't merely clear the hurdle of tacky; it convincingly soars over it and lands firmly in the territory of pleasingly theatrical.
When dining with small humans whose patience operates on a nuclear half-life timer, the first thing to do is order the children's meal. Before you've even lifted the cocktail list, before debating whether to have something new or stick to a tried favourite, before you've assessed the wine list's capacity to bankrupt you – just order the bloody nuggets. Ideally, they'll arrive before the offspring have coloured beyond the lines, flipped the table, or demanded electronic entertainment.
The children's offering arrived with admirable swiftness (just after my mango and yuzu sour aperitif had been deposited) – the menu's "Honey & Sesame Chicken" (listed at £20.95 for the adult portion) with steamed rice and California rolls. These weren't mere children's nuggets but properly executed pieces that had me pinching from my son's plate with parental privilege – sweet, tender morsels I'd happily order as a main course myself. My three-year-old, overcome with sensory delight, raised a cucumber roll skyward and screamed with the pure joy that adults can only achieve through finding a forgotten tenner. Before a morsel of grown-up food had even been ordered, I knew we had a winner.
Everything we had to start was exemplary. The yellowtail sashimi (£10.25) arrived as translucent petals of fish in a striped ceramic bowl, adorned with slices of green chilli and black truffle that provided vivid punctuation marks against the blush-pink flesh. The fish dissolved on the tongue with barely any encouragement, elevated by a yuzu dressing that brightened each mouthful like a shaft of sunlight through Easter bank holiday storm clouds. The seared wagyu maki rolls offered a pleasant BBQ glazing, though at £17.50, I'd have expected the beef to serenade me personally. The pork and kimchi gyoza (£10.75), however, were the true stars – plump parcels of porky pleasure where the assertive kimchi was cleverly tamed by fresh coriander, a pairing so inspired I mentally added it to my repertoire of kitchen experiments to attempt at home.
The main plates were more of a mixed bag. Black cod with miso dressing was predictably excellent – that marinated fish could make even the most ardent marine conservationist consider ocean depopulation. The prawn rendang, however, proved a conceptual misstep. Rendang demands the patience of a slow cook to develop and permeate its complex character; prawns require the briefest of heat introductions lest they transform into rubber. The marriage was doomed from the start: like pairing Beethoven with the Spice Girls – individually valid but incompatible.
At approximately £300 including wine and the mandatory "discretionary" service charge, this was an eye-wateringly expensive family lunch. Yet the quality of ingredients, the theatre of presentation, and service from a team so eager to please made it a memorable experience.
To close the meal, the children's dessert arrived – a theatrical soft-serve ice cream adorned with rainbow sprinkles, presented in a billowing dry ice spectacle that wouldn't have looked out of place in a 1980s music video, complete with its own meteorological system. The kids, already won over by the main course, reached new heights of delight as the miniature fog bank rolled across the table.
My wife suggested we return without the children – the culinary equivalent of "I know it cost a fortune, but I rather enjoyed myself." In the complex language of marriage, this translates to a glowing five-star recommendation.
Rating: 4/5
Excellent starters and theatrical presentation make up for conceptual missteps with mains. Bring your credit card, your sense of adventure, and possibly not your financial advisor.
Ivy Asia, Vicar Lane, Leeds LS1 6BB
Lunch for four with drinks: approximately £300