A Golden Feast at The Ivy in Lanes Brighton

However many times you visit the upmarket Ship Street brasserie its maximalist design always impresses and the addition of some tastefully sparkling Christmas decs makes it even more welcoming.

The restaurant is currently offering a Golden Feast, where a Crimbo set menu and specially created cocktails are served amongst the luxe interior, tropical ferns and twinkling fairy lights.It's a varied three-courser with some indulgent touches, and including Christmas crackers and, naturally, some dinky mince pies.

Since opening in 2018 the Brighton branch of the Ivy has always oozed comfort amid the singular design.

On our visit we took our places at one of their beautifully upholstered burnt orange leather banquettes and sunk into nests of plush cushions.

Our opening cocktails were both super little concoctions: a Popping Cracker Royale, a blend of gin, passion fruit, spiced mango, lime and cranberry juice topped with prosecco, finished with the flourish of fairy floss and popping candy, and The Gift That Keeps On Giving, with rum, banana liqueur, Baileys, salted caramel and cream.

Both drinks increased the aforementioned feeling of comfort, a feeling which showed no sign of stopping with first course of truffled wild mushrooms (what a great verb that is).

The fungi shared a dish with a satisfyingly stodgy Potato rösti, in a glossy pool of creamed mushroom, topped with fried quail’s egg (why wouldn’t it be?) and grated truffle.

A splendid starter and a rich statement of intent. The super foods and salads could wait (yet) another day.

My dining chum went for the slightly homely choice of a roast pumpkin and butternut squash soup, with truffle ricotta, and festooned with chestnuts, pine nuts, crispy sage.

She went on to choose an impressive slab of sirloin steak which had been dry-aged for 21 days for a Himalayan Salt Wall.

This rather bonkers-sounding process, not only draws out the excess moisture from the meat but also creates new flavours through osmosis with the salt.

It made for an insanely tender and flavourful cut of beef. Vive the salt wall!

Your reviewer kept things rich and creamy with a twist on The Ivy’s famous shepherd’s pie, which had been given a bit of poultry pizazz in the form of confit goose and turkey under the creamed mash .

Adorned with a little piggy in a blanket, this innocent-looking dish was an intense affair and a cranberry sauce added welcome zing to the heavy flavour of the dark-meat goose.

Our puddings were contrasting affairs, one relatively traditional Christmas pudding with almonds, redcurrants and vanilla cream (expertly flambéed by our immaculately attired and impeccably attentive waitress), the other, Santa’s on his Way, a wonderful creation of red velvet sponge and chocolate chimney and Santa.

There was still time for a couple more of those bespoke Crimbo cocktails, the Fairytale Of New York, with rye whiskey with pear, lemon topped with a fiendishly clever vegan foam, and Nuts About Chocolate, a mix of vodka, Baileys, macadamia, dark chocolate and cream.

The original incarnation of The Ivy used to attract many a famous actor and singer in its day, because of its location in the West End of London, close to the capital’s theatres, but if the thesps had eaten too many of these bounteous feasts they wouldn’t have trod the boards so lightly and may have struggled to fit into their tights.