TOKYOPLAY: Ivy Place - Daikanyama: Good Food, Better Location

Ivy Place is the latest venture from the now very popular T.Y Harbour Group, who also do T.Y Harbour Brewery, Beacon, and Cicada in Tokyo, just to mention a few. And whilst the decor and menu are nice and comfortable (both the chairs and the food), I think Ivy Place slightly lacks the spark of T.Y's other offerings.

The definite positives of Ivy Place is it's location in the new Daikanyama T-Site, and thus it's proximity to other fun weekend activities. After you've eaten you can spend the afternoon browsing the boutique stores, or spend hours skimming through the books and magazines at the new Tsutaya (the cook book section is particularly impressive with lots of English versions available!). The menu, although lacking the steak options which make Beacon so popular, is also very tasty, with modern flat bread pizzas (ours came topped with ricotta, tomato and anchovies), snapper carpaccio with yuzu dressing, various pastas and one extremely delicious citrus risotto with crisp pancetta. The servings seem slightly smaller than at T.Y Harbour and Beacon, but the flavours are spot-on.

Ivy Place also offers breakfast between 7 and 11am, the menu looks nice, and I was disappointed they didn't stretch it past 11 (given it was a Sunday and I only woke up around that time). With On the Corner now also suddenly disappearing off the Tokyo brunch scene, my quest for 2012 is to find somewhere new without spending a fortune at a high end hotel.