Anyone who’s read my reviews before will know that I’m not the biggest fan of The Ivy. I’ve had a few visits that have left me wondering what all the fuss is about, and I’ve never been entirely convinced that the name on the door guarantees the experience on the plate.

But my mum always said, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Lovely sentiment, Mum. But I’m not sure she fully understood the principle of criticism. If we all followed that advice, restaurant reviewers would have very little to do, and an awful lot of restaurants would be getting away with murder.

So, in the interests of fairness, I’m delighted to report that this visit was actually rather good.

Let’s start with the service, which was excellent. Friendly, attentive and exactly what you want when you’re celebrating a special occasion. There’s a particular skill in making guests feel looked after without making them feel managed, and the team got that balance absolutely right. Nobody was hovering over us with a clipboard, nor were we left wondering whether we’d been abandoned in a dining room full of expensive crockery.

The atmosphere was equally good. We visited on a Saturday lunchtime, which turned out to be a rather lovely time to experience The Ivy. The place was buzzing, but not in that frantic, look-at-me sort of way that can sometimes accompany a restaurant with a reputation to maintain. People were celebrating, chatting, laughing and, most importantly, actually enjoying themselves.

There’s something rather reassuring about seeing a room full of people who appear to have temporarily forgotten about their emails, their mortgages and whatever dreadful thing the news is telling them today. They were simply having lunch. And that, surely, is the point.

As for the food, I’ve had some genuinely hit-and-miss experiences at The Ivy, so I approached the menu with the sort of cautious optimism usually reserved for British summer weather. This time, however, the kitchen delivered.

The French onion soup was a thoroughly enjoyable start. It’s one of those dishes that sounds simple enough, but when it’s done properly, it’s a thing of real comfort: rich, savoury and deeply satisfying, with that lovely sweetness from the onions and the sort of depth that makes you want to scrape the bowl clean. It’s not a dish that needs to reinvent itself or arrive wearing a chef’s interpretation of a hat. It just needs to be good. And this was.

The sirloin steak was another highlight. A good steak is a useful test of a kitchen because there’s nowhere particularly convenient for it to hide. You can dress it up with sauces, garnish it with greenery and put it on a plate that costs more than the meal, but ultimately, the beef has to do the talking.

On this occasion, it did. The steak was excellent, delivering the sort of satisfying, beefy flavour you want from a decent sirloin, with a texture that made it a pleasure to eat. It felt like a proper main course rather than an exercise in restaurant presentation, and it was all the better for it.

And then there was dessert. Because, frankly, if you’re going to have lunch at The Ivy, you may as well commit to the experience. Our chocolate dome, surrounded by cream and colourful sprinkles, looked rather splendid. It had that slightly theatrical quality that The Ivy does so well, making dessert feel like an occasion in its own right rather than simply the thing you order because someone at the table insists they’re still hungry.

So, where does that leave me and my complicated relationship with The Ivy?

Well, I’m still not going to pretend that every visit has been a triumph. It hasn’t. I’ve experienced enough inconsistency to know that the Ivy name alone doesn’t guarantee a memorable meal.

But this visit reminded me that, when the service is right, the atmosphere is buzzing and the kitchen is producing food of a good standard, there’s a reason people keep coming back.

It was a lovely Saturday lunchtime, with excellent service, a genuinely enjoyable meal and the sort of atmosphere that makes you want to linger over another drink rather than immediately ask for the bill.

Mum, you’ll be pleased to know I’ve found plenty of nice things to say.

Don’t worry, though. I haven’t given up my critical faculties just yet.