Photo of
September 20, 2017
 Ivy on the Square
The Ivy on the Square will overlook St Andrew Square.

The Ivy on the Square opens on St Andrew Square in Edinburgh today.

It will be the first Scottish venture for The Ivy Collection. This is a group of restaurants, brasseries and cafés inspired by The Ivy on London’s West Street.

The original Ivy has long had a carefully polished reputation for being a celeb hangout.

Back in the day, Laurence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich, Noël Coward and Dame Nellie Melba were regulars.

Celeb-spotting

In the Nineties, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson and Brad Pitt all dropped by.

More recently, Benedict Cumberbatch, Damian Lewis Bradley Cooper have booked tables. Or, more likely, their personal assistants did.

Last year, Kylie performed a set there to mark the restaurant’s 100th birthday.

Over the last couple of years, The Ivy Collection has been rolling out its Ivy Cafe, Brasserie and Grill brands in places like Guildford, Bristol and  Bath.

A Glasgow branch is pencilled in for a site on Buchanan Street.

The Ivy on the Square: brasserie-style menus

Open seven days a week, the new Edinburgh venture has around 130 seats plus a bar and mezzanine overlooking the square.

The Ivy on the Square’s brasserie-style menus offer breakfast, elevenses, weekend brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, light snacks, cocktails and dinner.

Executive Chef Sean Burbidge, formerly of Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus, will oversee the kitchen.

Diners are promised a menu which incorporates ‘an eclectic mix of British ingredients, comforting Ivy classics and international dishes’.

Dishes include the shepherd’s pie and the chocolate bomb with hot salted caramel sauce. Both are menu options which helped cement the reputation of the original Ivy as a place for reliable comfort food.

New neighbours

The Ivy on The Square will soon have new neighbours in the form of Vapiano, a fast casual Italian restaurant, and Gaucho, an Argentinean-style steakhouse.

We look forward to rubbing shoulders with Kylie and swapping hot gossip with Cumberbatch.