The Ivy Cafe

The Ivy
The Ivy, London
Restaurant information
Established	1917
Current owner(s)	Richard Caring
Head chef	Gary Lee
Dress code	Smart casual
Street address	West Street
City	London
Country	England
Website	the-ivy.co.uk

The Ivy is a restaurant which is popular with celebrities, people from the arts and media and theatregoers. It is situated in West Street, near Cambridge Circus in London, opposite the Ambassadors and St Martin's theatres.

The original restaurant was opened by Abel Giandellini in 1917 as an unlicensed Italian cafe in a building on the same site. Legend has it that the name itself originated from a chance remark by the actress Alice Delysia, who overheard Giandellini apologise to a customer for the inconvenience caused by building works. When he said that it was because of his intention to create a restaurant of the highest class, she interjected "Don't worry – we will always come and see you. 'We will cling together like the ivy'", a line from a then-popular song. The restaurant expanded into the current premises in 1929 run by Giandellini, with his longstanding Maitre d' Mario Gallati as host .

In part due to its proximity to the West End theatres, exclusivity and late closing time (it is still open until close to midnight), the restaurant quickly became a theatrical institution, with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, John Gielgud, Lilian Braithwaite, Terence Rattigan, Binkie Beaumont and Noël Coward being habitués, having their regular 2-seater tables along the walls. According to the actor Donald Sinden in his Sky Arts television documentary series Great West End Theatres, The Ivy became so famous as a theatrical-celebrities haunt that in the 1943 revue Sweet and Low which ran for almost six years at the neighbouring Ambassadors Theatre, there was a satirical sketch included, updated regularly, entitled Poison Ivy, where the show's star Hermione Gingold "would exchange wicked and salacious celebrity gossip".

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