Cafe Ivy

Breakfast on a Friday. Staff were friendly, service was unfortunately slow. Eggs were overcooked, had to find my own salt & pepper. Bacon ok. Small serve for the price. Wife had granola that was way overpriced at $ 11. Overall, disappointed with my first visit here.

One star for great friendly staff and fantastic service, one for presentation of food and speed and the fact the cook came out to the table. No stars for the food.
We order a bunch of small serves tapas style for a group to share and they brought out whole lot at once! Half of It had obviously been under heater as it was dried out.
The sliders were in big dry buns instead of soft smaller buns and had dried up meat patties in them. The rest of food was very ordinary.
I had tried to order a coffee from this place twice before and the flat white was like dish water so I should have known better.

Had coffee and cake here for the first time this morning.
Coffee was good although not as hot as I would like but still good.
Had toasted banana bread which was nice and tasted fresh. We also had a nut slice which was very fresh and tasty and would highly recommend a try!
A nice little touch is a few choc coated coffee beans on the side of your coffee. Saying that I didn’t get any on my latte but did with a flat white ordered.

This was my first visit to Ivy, I wouldn’t say that it disappointed me, but it wasn’t amazing. We visited for lunch, and were greeted by friendly staff who showed us to a table. The waitress who took out orders and served our food was sick with a cold/​was sniffling which kind of put me off. I don’t think it’s appropriate for people who are sick to be serving and working with food.
I ordered the beetroot/​pumpkin/​dukkah/​haloumi salad, but I added chicken to it. The salad was ok, and it had a nice vinaigrette dressing. The haloumi was awful, I couldn’t eat it — and j usually love haloumi.
They do however, have a really nice selection of cakes and an amazing dessert menu (waffles, pancakes, dessert pizza) which I’d like to go back and try.
Overall, lunch was ok but I didn’t really love my experience at Ivy.

Brunch with friends, and as one had a voucher from the Entertainment Book she chose to come here.
My seat had a direct view into the side of the kitchen where I could see food scraps on the floor near the bin. Someone had accidentally broken a plate in there in readiness to serve a meal as we heard the bang, and I saw some of the food scraps being picked up off the kitchen floor. I wish there was a closing this from sight.
There is a beautiful huge photo of the canal in Venice on the wall and my friend had prime view, so conversation led to travel talk.
We started with hot drinks, and I ordered a hot chocolate. It was served with two marshmallows (pink & white) on the side. One of the coffee orders had two chocolate coated coffee beans sitting on the teaspoon.
As for the food I ordered Eggs Benedict with a side of mushrooms. The eggs were perfectly poached. There could have been a little more sauce as this barely covered the egg. The toast was nice. I found the ham to be of the cheap variety as it looked like it wasn’t 100% ham. Simple salt and pepper shakers were on the table, and I prefer freshly ground. The mushrooms were nice.
The food was nothing to shout out about. It wasn’t bad, it was just not up to my expectations. I’ll go back one evening and try their cherry ripe chocolate topped pizza.

Café Ivy. what a pleasant surprise on the parade! Great Mediterranean style food matched with reasonable pricing, friendly staff & efficient service!
The Ivy burger was definitely the meal of the day. could definitely give other burger bars a run for their money. The sandwiches were served with fresh rye bread and were delicious. The Ivy chips alone were amazing, I’ll be back just for them!
Overall, a really pleasant dining experience!

Took family to this place for lunch one time and was fairly unimpressed by food. It came out too quick and all seemed a bit like ready made and reheated food. The nuggets were just heated up dinosaur nuggets of the frozen kind when many other cafes make them from real chicken.
Didn’t trust enough to buy coffee there, went elsewhere. But to be fair it was only one visit so not the best basis for a review, but it’s 4:40am and I can’t sleep so may as well Unilocal

I really don’t understand how Argo is always packed & this place always has numerous free tables. I think it is the best café in the area by leaps and bounds. I’ve eaten here multiple times, the price is worth every penny and it is cheaper then majority of the cafés and restaurant on the parade.
The service is beautiful, staff are always happy and accommodating. They’re never rushing to seat the next person or take another order. The food is a delight, it always tastes delicious, fresh and is always plated beautifully. You can tell the chef enjoys their job and cares which is a delight. I love it!
Oh! They even do take away and delivery up to 5 km. Personally I’d rather eat in its just a nicer experience and their plating makes me enjoy my meal that little bit more. (:

There’s this thing that I don’t really ‘get’ about Norwood — there’s a heap of pretty nondescript kind of Italian cafes there that do some pretty standard, solid food. They all kinda look the same, with similar menus — nothing to stick in your mind. Is it just me? Am I just reading it all wrong?
Anyways, Café Ivy, in my mind falls into this. In a world where every bar, café, restaurant and even corner deli seems to cater to or fall into a ‘niche’ there are still some pretty vague options this side of town.
The décor could be anywhere, nothing sticks in mind — the menu too.
That isn’t to say it wasn’t good — my eggs benedict with salmon was nice, as was my iced chocolate. They came out super quick, the staff were friendly enough (no table service though) and it looked good, it’s just that everything seemed to un-​unique. It’s not that this place — or the others I am thinking of in the area are ‘generic’ in the way a chain is, it’s just that none of them offer anything special, worth shouting about…
Decent food and service but no real edge… and the thing is… I like edge.

We popped in here because the Argo queue was out the door, along the street and round the corner!
We ordered a coffee and a hot white chocolate, and with maybe 10 other customers in total, it took about 15 minutes for those to be delivered. The chocolate was described by recipient as an «adult baby chino» with marshmallows on the side, sweet and delicious.
I found the coffee just slightly above average, and certainly not hot hot.
The staff were all really friendly and there was a solid selection of cakes, so I’m prepared to be swayed to more stars if I’m ever here again.