The Ivy is aptly named. Just look at how it’s spreading. These days it’s everywhere. If there isn’t an Ivy near you, there soon will be. As well as the original site in London – which last year celebrated its 100th birthday – there are now Ivy Brasseries, Ivy Grills and Ivy Cafés in Covent Garden, Chelsea, Kensington, Soho, Marylebone, St John’s Wood, the City, Tower Bridge, Blackheath, Wimbledon, Richmond, Cobham in Surrey, Marlow Garden in Buckinghamshire, Tunbridge Wells, Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham, Harrogate, York and Edinburgh. Opening this year are yet more Ivy Brasseries, Ivy Grills and Ivy Cafés in Winchester, Brighton, Guildford, Cambridge, Birmingham and Leeds.
It’s extraordinary. At the current rate of expansion, by this time next year they’ll outnumber Starbucks. The year after that, they’ll outnumber McDonald’s. The year after that, Tesco.
And then one morning, sometime in the...