The Ivy House, Holborn, London

In response to my posting last month about there being no ice, no lemon, no lime, and the tonic being flat 'nightlifeace', who posts regular rave reviews about this place sent me the following charming message:-

"you got barred for bein a moron"

Do you think he works there? ... Or does he just has a strange idea of what constitutes a decent well-run pub?

13 Jan 2009 13:34

The Ivy House, Holborn, London

Went last to the Ivy House this week for the first time with a group of friends. I quite often drink gin and tonic, which isn�t a difficult drink to get right; all you need is a half-decent Gin, a small bottle of tonic, some ice cubes, and preferably lemon, or a slice of lime. The Ivy house were using flat tonic from large plastic bottles, that had clearly been open some time, and had no lemons or limes or, for most of our stay, any ice. I had a couple of these flat, sickly drinks, then tried a large one hoping the extra gin would make up for it, requesting it in a slightly larger glass (I always think large spirits should be served in a taller glass), got a large gin in a pint glass (which wasn�t what I meant by requesting a �slightly larger glass�) filled to the top with warm flat slim-line tonic. Asked if they had any lemon yet, and was told no but she could put in some lime cordial if I wanted... Needless to say I declined. I know it�s a pub and not the American Bar at the Savoy but any London pub should be able to correctly serve a refreshing cold g&t. I resolved to switch to Becks Vier, needing something light and refreshing after an overdose of warm flat lemonade but was told the Becks was off.

If I was the bar manager I�d ditch the plastic bottles of flat warm tonic and opt for small fresh baby tonics out of a fridge; always make sure the ice machine was working, and always ensure the bar had a fresh stock of lemon/lime etc prior evening service, and if I ran out I�d ask a member of staff to pop out to nearest supermarket (Sainsbury�s in Holborn a couple of minutes away) to get some, rather than risk upsetting paying customers. One of our group was drinking Corona�s too and would have liked lime with that. Had a Carling then left. No surprise that the pub was half empty, in a Holborn full of office parties it being mid-week in mid-December. The fact that the bar was carelessly kept makes me wonder that the beers etc might not be kept correctly and that the place may not be clean generally. There�s a Thai restaurant upstairs apparently; I dread to think what that�s like.

11 Dec 2008 11:40