“We’re closing down The Ivy today!” shouted, Ari Gold on HBO’s show “Entourage”…the
the implication being the restaurant is Hollywood’s premier power lunch spot for dealmaking in plain sight.”
If impressionist painter Claude Monet dines in heaven, the late artist is on the front patio of The Ivy. He would be immersed in its ethereal setting behind the white picket fence, on Robertson, along the border of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, California.
I am no artist, but as a travel writer who lives around the corner, I make many morning visits to The Ivy for inspiration with indulgent scones. Or, later in the day, lobster ravioli with the Ivy pink sauce. I send any visitors to town there or, even better, take them myself.
One does not need rose-colored glasses at The Ivy, because guests, at white linen-covered
tables are surrounded by water pitchers bursting big with pink, red, yellow and peach-colored roses.
The vases themselves are painted works of art created by Lynn Von Kersting. She, along with her husband, chef Richard Irving and their daughter India, are the proprietors.
Von Kersting also designed the Ivy’s dishes and cups. The painted pottery is so timeless and popular it can be purchased online or via the nearby Indigo Seas storefront, along with candles and cookies, which are iconic, popular gifts.
I purchased the ivory, green and pink rose-patterned tie the servers wear. Call me sycophantic, but I unabashedly wear it every time I visit.
Striped and flower-patterned pillows are placed on green, wrought-iron chairs, along with white umbrellas that shade the brick floor. The look provides a European cottage porch feel to The Ivy amidst the flora, craft cocktails and cuisine.
The scene, which has been catnip for celebrities and the paparazzi since 1983, is scored by the sound of gentle, softly arranged, bouncy pop hits from the 1980’s – the decade during which The Ivy opened. The tunes are vocalized by Von Kersting herself.
Songs choices often include “Stuck in the Middle With You”…”Magic Carpet Ride”…”Takin’ it to the Streets”…”What a Fool Believes”…”Steal Away”…”Minute By Minute”…”Private Eyes”…and…”You Belong To Me.” Steely Dan, Toto, Marty Balin, and Billy Joel never sounded so sweet.
Meeting the Maker
The morning upon which I met Von Kersting, she, in a regal fashion, stepped out of the car
which delivered her and her dog. Behind sunglasses Jaqueline Onasis would envy, Von Kersting emerged onto the patio with an unhurried aura of grace.
Her vibrant daughter India, a new mother herself, introduced me to the grand dame. “Michael Patrick is a writer and radio host,” India explained. “He’s written about us.”
It was I who felt the impulse to bow, but Von Kersting who kissed my hand, leaving a lovely
lipstick-print. Out of modesty, I will not paraphrase words in her mouth, but she complimented my looks –especially my apparel which, of course, was The Ivy tie.
I thanked her and replied, “May I tell you my favorite thing about your restaurant?”
“What is it?” she tilted her head and asked.
“…The music!” I insisted, after a dramatic pause, allowing her tunes playing in the background to punctuate my answer.
“Charmer,” she stated, allowing me to get away with my cheesy play and then thanked me while still softly cradling my hand.
Playful Place
Amidst all its gentle elegance, The Ivy has become a playful place for me. I first became aware of The Ivy in pop culture long before I moved to the Los Angeles-area neighborhood it occupies.
Jeremy Piven’s character Ari Gold, the hard-charging, show-biz talent agent on the HBO show “Entourage,” sequestered his office team to the conference room for an emergency lunch meeting.
“We’re closing down The Ivy today!” shouted, Ari: the implication being the restaurant is
Hollywood’s premier power lunch spot for dealmaking in plain sight. Most of the dealing I do at The Ivy is dates. It is such a gentrified, feminine place to canoodle over coffee with soft scrambled eggs and smoked salmon and Capri toast…if morning is the end of a date or a new beginning.
A most memorable Ivy date was lunch with a movie director who was raised in Romania and left to escape communism. She then opened a Lebanese restaurant in London; attended the Cannes Film Festival each year and climbed mountain peaks for fun.
This was a considerable woman, and only the magic of The Ivy could possibly pull me, in so deeply over my head, even a little closer to the surface.
We sat in the sun on the cushioned bench on the same side of a table along The Ivy’s iconic white picket fence. I wore a white suit – accented, of course, by The Ivy tie. Trudy Sargent, and her orange dress, were radiant amongst the roses and white-clad servers who complimented my tie, with a smile, since they were wearing the same one.
Roses For the Win
“Senior, why aren’t you working?” the server Julio joked, gesturing toward the kitchen.
“Let me know when you need me. I can probably fill water glasses and bus tables without
screwing it up,” I responded in earnest and then turned back to Trudy to talk.
My internal, acute alarm sounds when I sense a woman has heard enough of me, so I concluded the chit-chat and settled the check. But I stopped Trudy as she began to step away from the table.
“You forgot something,” I said.
She instinctively felt for, and over her shoulder, found her purse, so she was puzzled.
I pointed to the painted pitcher full of roses and explained, “These are yours to take home.”
She seemed to think I was kidding until I presented the pitcher to her.
“Oh, my goodness!” Trudy exclaimed, looking around to be certain as we walked off the porch. I arranged the surprise by purchasing the pitcher and posies ahead of time – the day before our lunch – with The Ivy staff.
Even after a romantic career during which I proposed by presenting diamond engagement rings four times, I had never experienced a reaction to a gift as effusive as Trudy gave. She shook with emotional excitement all the way to her car while I walked her around the corner.
“Are you going to be okay to drive?” I asked.
Speechless and smiling, the worldly woman, with the flowers buckled into her front seat, could only, emphatically, nod.
Gift Idea Fizzled
I was late for a date in Redondo Beach – a spontaneous happy hour drink with a Persian woman I would be meeting for the first time. I like to bring a small gift, but I was pressed for time. In Beverly Hills, considering traffic and challenging parking, no errand can happen with alacrity.
Suddenly inspired though, I remembered The Ivy had started selling gift-boxed candles.
“Perfetto,” I exclaimed to myself as I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my keys. A candle would be a subtle, slightly sensual token. And, one from The Ivy, a superb souvenir.
I knew I could pull up to the curbside valet and quickly buy the candle, which would come in a gift bag, from the maître d stand on the porch about 10 yards away. This worked, in the late afternoon, just as I had planned, and I was quickly handed the little glass-jar candle.
“That will be $90, sir.”
I thought, for a moment, the maître d said the candle cost $90. And he did because that was precisely the price. Have you ever swallowed hard? I did.
During a slight hesitation, my mind had time to consider the man had run upstairs to fetch the candle from the office. And that I was a regular at The Ivy. Also, I did not want to be late to Redondo Beach. So, I bit the bullet, bought the candle, hurried out and bid my Ivy buddies “andole!”
Candle-Worthy?
During the drive to the date, I had time to think. I processed this was a first date. I heard the
voice of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David in my head asking, “What if, when you meet her, the date does not go well? What if she is not ‘$90 candle-worthy?’” As I thought this, See’s Candy Shop passed by off the passenger side of the car.
“Missed opportunity,” I said aloud, thinking it would have been a chance to switch in a new gift and save the special Ivy candle for a “player to be named later.”
A trade was in order, I decided. So when I was in striking distance of the meeting spot, H.T. Grill, fate presented a Michael’s craft shop on Pacific Coast Highway.
I do not recall if the tires of my Chevy Blazer skidded as I hit the brakes to turn into the parking lot, but my maneuver was successful. I emerged from the store with a $16 candle, which I popped into the gift bag.
Gentlemanly decorum prevents me from revealing whether the date was “Ivy candle worthy,” but I can say I never had the opportunity to catch that candle’s scent. And I still have The Ivy candle.
Ivy Cookies as a Gift
It was not a date, but breakfast with a friend: CBS superstar Sportscaster Jim Nantz, who was in town to broadcast the PGA Tour’s LA Open at Riviera Country Club. Or maybe it was the LA Chargers NFL game.
Either way, when Nantz comes to town, he stays in a certain notable Beverly Hills-area hotel. So, we try to meet for breakfast at Nate-n-Al’s, the famous deli at which the late broadcaster Larry King held court every morning.
Nantz, in fact, once had coffee and a bagel with King there. For nostalgia’s sake, and in
homage to the great talk show host, we sit at the same table King did every morning. It was not bagels, but sweets I brought Nantz as a gift: a box of the Ivy’s famous chocolate chip cookies.
On your plate or as a present, pound-for-$22-dollar-pound presented in-person, or via post, they are a perfect gift. Even with all the sports stats swirling in his head for that week’s game broadcast, Nantz knew the significance of the bakery from which they came: The Ivy.
It was a “touchdown” or “hole-in-one” gift!
A Presidential Cake
A recent lunch diner passed on the Ivy cookies because he brought his own dessert – a birthday cake – to The Ivy.
“Someone brought in a cake and it was all completely sealed in a box with plastic wrap, which I found unusual,” said Walter Milgiore, a server from Palermo, Sicily. He then noticed the street in front of The Ivy, Robertson, being closed off. “I was then told I would be serving the President of the United States.”
The birthday cake was for Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, who was there to lunch at The Ivy with his father and First Lady Jill Biden.
I figured it was not a state secret, so I asked Walter which menu item President Biden chose for lunch.
“A cheeseburger,” Walter answered. “I wanted to say, ‘Mr. President, you can get a
cheeseburger anywhere,’ and suggest maybe some of our other items, but I did not.”
The Ivy cheeseburger, at $36, is fit for a world leader. It is named “India’s hamburger” after India Irving, who runs The Ivy with her parents. The menu describes it as “House ground beef, bacon, brie, crispy basil and garlic basil aioli on a sun-dried tomato brioche bun, served with French fries.”
Mind you, The Ivy menu also presents the likes of Siberian Reserve Caviar; Japanese Wagyu
carne asada or ribeye; and a 1.25 lb. fresh Eastern lobster with homemade tagliatelle and The Ivy pink sauce. Scallops; crab cakes; calamari; oysters; tuna tartare; roasted Colorado rack of lamb; Gulf shrimp salad; and even gourmet pizzas adorn the menu.
Patriotic Touch
By all accounts the President was amiable to the rest of the diners, waving and saying hello to many of them. He even posed for a photo with the Ivy staff and India’s baby daughter Violetta, who, India said, slept through it all.
Violetta, like the rest of The Ivy proprietors and servers, is quite accustomed to celebrities, stars, musicians and captains of industry dining at the linen-covered tables on their veranda or inside.
In a light-touch, tasteful and thoughtful manner, The Ivy does everything to commemorate the Presidential visit. The restaurant created an appropriate blue hoodie, t-shirt and cap bearing the American flag and “The Ivy.”
White-haired, mustachioed Mario Juarez, one of The Ivy’s friendliest and most popular servers, models the “patriotic line” on The Ivy website and social media. He is an unassuming, humble gentleman. If you ask him about being a model, he blushes.
Modeling The Ivy in Media
Mario, Walter and The Ivy serving staff wear the aforementioned “Ivy tie.” I wear mine either at the restaurant or on special occasions. The colorful, flower-filled tie, hanging from my neck, has made its share of high-profile appearances on television and with celebrities.
I report each occasion back to India Irving, who says she loves it when I send her a photo of me with a star and a caption such as: “Look: the ‘Ivy tie’ made it onto the “Jennifer Hudson Show!”
Comedian and HBO “Real Time” talk show host Bill Maher, when I chatted him up at his book signing at The Grove, remarked no less than three times how much he liked the tie.
The pinnacle, so far, may have been when I was a litigant on “The Verdict,” a courtroom show featuring cases in front of “Judge Hatchett.” From the bench, on the national television show, in the middle of testimony, Judge Hatchett looked at my Ivy tie and proclaimed, “I love the bold colors in your tie!” Hatchett pronounced. The Ivy tie won the case.
“Bunga Bunga”
On a sunny late morning, after I finished my cappuccino and before the lunch crowd came in, Walter and I got to shooting the breeze about his life in Palermo, Sicily. I tried to practice my Italian language. Alas, Il mio Italiano e “piccolo” or perhaps even “brutto.” Walter helps me with it…or at least tolerates my attempts and pronunciation, which is “maltagliati.”
“You know, Walter, the Italian I wish I had met?”
“Sophia Loren?” he grinned and guessed.
“Si, si. Maybe I will still meet her. But it is too late for me to meet your late president Silvio
Berlusconi.” Walter grinned again.
“That is a man I would like to have partied with.”
“’Bunga Bunga,’ eh?” Walter said of the infamous joke upon which Berlusconi based his
reportedly lavish, wild parties. “Maybe ‘Bunga Bunga’ at The Ivy!”
“We can invite her predecessor Giorgia Meloni! Mama mia, bella donna!”
We both laughed and then Walter told me he planned to soon visit his former home in Sicily.
“I have not been to Palermo, but I have been to Catania, Syracuse and Taormina,” I told him.
Then I asked the tall, dark Sicilian whether he’d seen the HBO show “White Lotus,” the second season of which was set and filmed in Taormina.
“I…have not seen that show. But many people have asked me about it,” said Walter, keeping an eye on his other tables. It was between breakfast and lunch, so he had a moment.
I told him the characters in the show visit many of the same places I did.
The Lemon Caper
This included the nearby filming locations, such as Bar Vitelli in the hilltop village of Savoca, for “The Godfather” movie. “I stayed at Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo. It had a sweeping view of the sea below and Mount Etna.”
“Si, si, si, bene,” Walter responded. “Tell me, did you go to the Teatro Antico?”
“The ancient Greco-Roman theater. Si. It was virtually attached to the hotel,” I answered as
Walter nodded. “It may sound funny, but what I remember is the trees outside grew the biggest lemons I have ever seen. They were huge – bigger than a grapefruit!”
“Ah, si, si. Those are called ‘cedro.’ Very big, si.”
I suggested to Walter that I had never seen cedro lemons in America.”
“No, no,” he said…but then he held up a finger and looked skyward for a moment as if he were searching his memory. Walter then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Si. I realize I have seen them here.”
“In California?”
“Si, si,” Walter insisted. “I saw them growing on a tree once when I was driving to work. I was
just trying to remember where.”
“Va bene!”
I nodded and cupped my ear to listen to Walter speak as he bent forward and, with his eyes
darting back and forth to see who might be around to listen, whispered almost “sotto voce”-style.
Whether I am embellishing about this caper or not, Walter did impart simple directions to go up Beverly Drive (ironically past the movie studio mansion also seen in “The Godfather”) to North Beverly Drive and then to a road along the Franklin Canyon Park. “You will see them here. The cedro. The tree is at a house on the corner. On the left.”
Failed Mission
My first pass at following Walter’s cedro treasure map through the luxury neighborhood and up toward Franklin Canyon was woefully unsuccessful. I saw nothing of what he described. A week later I was back at The Ivy.
“I had hoped to bring you a cedro,” I told Walter with a shrug, “but I could not find the house. Mi sono patso! May we go over it again?”
Walter, between waiting tables, leaned over and patiently described, yet again, directions to the corner on which he had seen the massive cedro lemons growing. This time, I was determined.
With one of the pens tucked into his apron, I wrote down everything Walter said, with much better results. On my previous lemon raid, I had not driven nearly far enough through the winding street up into the mountainside neighborhood along Franklin Canyon.
The Lemon Caper…Continued
On a lane barely wide enough for two opposing cars to pass due to being bordered by houses I spotted the contemporary corner home Walter referred to. I slowed the car enough to spot the lemon tree and, indeed, its large cedro lemons.
Without stopping, I noticed, unfortunately, the lemon tree was in the yard of the home rising just behind a tall, solid, white wall of a fence. Some of the branches extended over the fence, but high above the sidewalk and out of reach.
I had arrived in broad daylight, and though I saw no one else, I felt conspicuous because of the narrowness of the street and the closeness of the homes. Also, I was unsure exactly what the law was about picking fruit from a tree clearly on someone’s property.
Having come this far, though, I wanted, for laughs at least, to complete the clue hunt and return to Walter with a prized cedro.
I parked the car well around the bend and took what I tried to make look like a casual stroll along the street. Once along the fence under the tree, I did not dawdle, but I determined the lemon tree branches were a few feet above my reach.
I considered retrieving two golf clubs from my car to try a “3-wood prune” maneuver. But then I imagined how mortified I would be if the homeowner happened to pull up to or out of the garage. What if a nosey neighbor saw me out of their window or someone out walking their dog saw a grown man in a tie swatting at citrus?
My next gambit was to try to reach one of the lemons which had hit the ground and was laying within reach under the gap between the fence bottom and the ground. But then I imagined being on my hands and knees on the ground, feeling around under a fence, when a do-gooder came across me.
“Sir, are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” I’d reply.
“You need help or something?”
It was all for a lark anyway, so, alas, I left the lemons.
The Lemon Caper Conclusion
By the time I had occasion to return to The Ivy, Walter, the Sicilian server, had been to Palermo and back.
Before I could break my good news/bad news to him, he brought up his trip.
“I thought of you in Sicily,” he said, with his eyebrows lifted. “I was going to put some cedro in my luggage to bring them back for you,” Walter said. “But I was unsure when I would see you again.”
“Grazie mille. Accoglienti, Walter,” I said, touched. “Anyway, I don’t think you’re supposed to
smuggle fruit back through immigration, anyway.”
“No?”
“I think US Customs has a thing about agriculture.”
It’s the thought that counts, but it proves even more that Walter and the servers at The Ivy have hearts as big as cedro lemons.
Serving Servers
I show, in return, my appreciation and affection for The Ivy servers through gratuities and gifts. Sometimes I say, “Thanks a million – or $500 million,” while handing the servers a Powerball lottery ticket.
“Gracias! If I win, I will share it with you!” Mario told me.
“Mario, if you disappear and no one knows where you went, I will know what happened and I will understand. And I will not tell anybody you won the jackpot,” I told him. Knowing what a devoted father Mario is, I bet the first thing Mario would do is take his young son to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and arcade games or the movies.
I am blessed to be able to bring my son Harrison, who is a little older than Mario’s son, to The Ivy from time to time. I guess as the song says, little lambs do eat ivy, or, in this case, at The Ivy.
Harrison likes the multi-colored “Christmas-style” party lights strung along the patio in the ivy and greenery, and so do I. Harrison and I, in homage to The Ivy, each hung a similar string of colored lights in our respective apartments!
The Night the Lights Went Out
During the pandemic, at 10 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving, The Ivy, and all the other L.A. County restaurants were forced to close – possibly for months. For our last supper, Harrison and I dined at The Ivy. We lingered over our chocolate chip cookies until we were the last ones there.
We even watched the servers packing up the patio chairs as if they were battening down a seasonal cottage before a hurricane, and offered to help. Harrison and I were at The Ivy the night the lights would go out.
For the sake of posterity, we had our photo taken just as so many paparazzi have done to the celebs who chomp on the gentle restaurants’ fried chicken while breathing in the fresh air and basking in the flashbulbs.
We expressed goodbyes, gratitude and best wishes to the sad staffers. I also over-tipped the best we could manage.
“That was nice of you, Dad,” Harrison said as the newly furloughed staff, still in their paisley
uniform ties, switched off the colored lights the moment we cleared the iconic, white picket-fenced porch.
Thankfully America, and The Ivy, have fully returned in living color.
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at [email protected] Order his book Travel Tattler – Less Than Torrid Tales at https://amzn.to/3Qm9FjN
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