As you will have heard by now, The Ivy in Emirates Towers is closing it’s doors on 31st December.  There are a myriad of rumours going around as to why this is happening, none of which I am going to repeat on here as some of them could be slightly libelous at best!!

What I can tell you is that it just feels like they no longer care.  Why do I say that?  Well, Ladies Night.  I went last week and had the worst meal I have every had there.  By far.

The Ladies Night menu consists of a 3 course meal and 4 glasses of wine for AED 199 which is an absolute bargain.  Or, it used to be.  Now it’s just a bit embarrassing.  Portion sizes have been cut down so dramatically that you really are thankful for the bowl of bread at the beginning of the meal.

For example, this is their prawn cocktail starter:

Have you ever seen such a sad offering?  ONE prawn on some lettuce.  No dressing.  None of the delicious brown bread with butter as it is listed on the menu.  Just a prawn.  On some lettuce.  With a lemon to squeeze over it.

That however may have been preferable to my undeniably beautiful but badly balanced starter of smoked duck salad.

There were 3 slices of smoked duck, which were approx 2mm thick.  There were some tasteless vegetables.  There were blobs of indescribably strong goats cheese.  And then the pretty edible flowers.

I had a couple of bits and it just wasn’t worth plowing on through.  I asked the waiter to take it away.

Next up was the butternut squash risotto with roasted pumpkin seeds.

This had to be good, right?!  Wrong.

The first one out was floating in oil.  Turns out it was the pumpkin seed oil drizzle they dress the dish with.  Guess someone got a little over enthusiastic.  I sent it back.

Here is the second one:

They had removed the pumpkin seeds and the oil.  Sadly, this was really no better.  It was under cooked and cold.  Also, don’t let the bowl fool you.  It’s a very thinly spread layer of risotto.  Not that it mattered.  After a couple of bites, I sent it back too.

My dessert was literally the only decent point of the meal.

I had the lavender crème brûlée. They hadn’t cut down the portion size which was nice.  I would say they were slightly over enthusiastic with the lavender, but it was tasty none the less.

I left before even having all four glasses of wine because I figured that I had basically been drinking on an empty stomach and it wasn’t worth the hangover the next day.

It’s such a shame.  I have been to The Ivy more times than any other restaurant in Dubai.  I’ve had their bar menu, lunch menu, dinner menu and Ladies Night menu before.  I’ve even reviewed it and been really positive, twice – here and here!!  I have never left their hungry, let alone disappointed on top.

Shame on you guys.  You should be going out with a bang, and not convincing us not to bother again before you shut.