REVIEW: NEW VEGAN MENU AT THE IVY LEEDS

I have been back in Leeds for a couple of weeks now and let me tell you I have been BUSY. I woke up last Tuesday morning ready to attack a full day of uni work before I needed to head into town to try the new Twisted London vegan menu, (blog post soon to come). However, just as I sat down at my desk with my laptop open, I received a message on Instagram from Pure Agency asking if I would like to come down and try the new vegan menu at The Ivy. Food or uni work I asked myself? Food every time. 

I had never been to any of The Ivy restaurants and didn’t even know they even had a vegan menu, so I was very excited for me first visit. I arrived at The Ivy for 12:30 in the afternoon with two of the women from Pure, a few journalists and a nutritionist who was going to give us some tips and tricks on how to stick to those new year’s resolutions. 

My first impression of The Ivy was that it was STUNNING. The décor is truly amazing and even the toilets are decorated beautifully. It was a lovely place to sit for lunch. 

As soon as everyone arrived, we were ready to order. Little did I know, I was sitting down for a three-course meal, and with a vegan junk food tasting event at 5pm, I was a little worried about how I was going to fit all of this food in to my body. Although, this is not a bad problem to have. 

The Ivy have a separate vegan and vegetarian menu, making it incredibly easy to sift through the vegan friendly options. It was nice to be able to go to a restaurant and not feel restricted by the food choice. 

For starters, I decided to go for the warm Asian salad. This was served with watermelon, pak choi, broccoli, cashew nuts, sesame, coriander and hoisin sauce. I chose this option as I thought it would be quite light, leaving more room for my main and dessert. 

When the salad arrived, it was a little bigger than I expected. Priced at £7.50, (a little more than I would typically spend on a salad), it was good value for money. It also tasted great and the watermelon was a lovely sweet touch to the dish. I would definitely order this again and would recommend this to anyone else. 

When it came to the main, I was going to order the Sweet Potato Keralan Curry, as curry is my favourite food. However, I wanted to try something new, so sticking with the sweet potato theme I ordered the Dukka spiced sweet potato. This was served with a coconut yoghurt and sesame with some mixed grains and a Moroccan tomato sauce served on the side. 

When the main arrived, it did look quite small. However, the coconut yoghurt was so rich and creamy that it really did not need to be any bigger. I could have just eaten the sweet potato in yoghurt and I would have been satisfied. I was also happy that the mixed grains and sauce was served separately, as this meant I could sort of build my own dish. This was priced at £13.95, which is very reasonable for a main course. 

At this point I was stuffed, but luckily, I only ordered a selection of fresh fruits for my dessert. Well, that’s what I thought. 

This selection of fresh fruits was the prettiest dessert I had ever been served. It had arrived with coconut yoghurt and some edible flowers. It was BEAUTIFUL and exceeded all of my expectation. It was however, priced at £7.95, which I believe is a little bit pricey for some fruits. However, it was a nice treat and although I would not order it again, I did enjoy it. 

I really enjoyed my experience at The Ivy, and I would just like to say a big thank you to Pure Agency for inviting me down. Tune in to the next post to find out how I managed to eat another three-course meal two and a half hours later. 

Until next time, 

Emma xx