The Ivy offers up a specially-priced set menu to brighten up January

The Ivy was opened in the middle of London’s theatreland by Italian restaurateur Abi Giandolini and famously became the venue of choice for the leading lights of flim and stage.

This month’s 1917 set menu is a welcome cut-price offering which tips its hat to the Silver Screen goddesses and acid-tongued playwrights who made the restaurant their own.

The menu is available at both Sussex branches of The Ivy restaurant group, Chichester in East Street, the Ivy in the Lanes in Brighton’s Ship Street.

We visited the latter, once more in the footsteps of Laurence Olivier, who as well as regular at the original Ivy, was also a long-time Brighton resident in his seafront home on Royal Crescent.

The very reasonably priced menu (£19.17 for two courses, or £24.17 with a pudding) features Ivy dishes created over the last century, such as the classic Shepherd’s Pie as well as traditional dishes made popular in the decades that followed.

In addition there are some new 1917-inspired cocktails bearing the names of The Ivy’s illustrious thespian forebears – Marlene Dietrich’s Glitz was a lively affair, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur mixed with Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru Gin, citric blend, pear syrup, bitters, peeled cucumber and mint leaves, topped with Prosecco.

Vivien Leigh’s Elixir, was less elaborate, Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru Gin again, bitter honey aperitif and pineapple cordial topped with tonic water which made for a showstopping G n T.

There’s a decent choice of dishes on the 1917 menu and it was pleasing to see the venue’s excellent duck liver parfait (with brioche) among the starter options.

It’s a refined but not insubstantial dish which was also part of The Ivy’s Christmas set offering, it presumably sold like hot cakes, and fairly easy to see why.

The very generous-sized and extremely indulgent first course, was encased in butter and one which I’d like to imagine the legendary Orson Welles would have enjoyed.

While preparing for a role as Othello in the near by St James's Theatre, his biographer Frank Brady noted: “The Ivy delivered to the theatre each day packed with his individual lunch, which consisted of large sherried oysters, pâté de foie gras, a wheel of Runesten cheese, and other delicacies and always accompanied by a bucket of chilled Pouilly-Fumé or a Musigny Blanc."

My dining partner enjoyed a slightly less decadent starter in the form of a warming wild mushroom soup with a plant-based mascarpone, and we shared a freshly-baked salt-crusted sourdough bread, which I’d panic-ordered in the fear of running out of a suitable bread platform for the amazing parfait (Orson definitely would have approved of my foresight).

After taking first dibs on the starters I graciously allowed my dining chum to chose The Ivy’s original shepherd’s pie, probably the venue’s most famous dish, which sees an ‘umble favourite elevated to something rather unique.

You probably won’t taste another Shep’s Pie like it until you relent and come back for another. It’s not the largest serving you’ll ever eat but the intensity and richness of the slow-braised lamb and beef (yep, it’s actually a hybrid Shepherd’s/Cottage pie) and Cheddar mash, makes it something to be savoured.

For an extra £4.95 I made the unreconstructed 70s caveman choice of steak and chips – albeit a grilled thinly beaten beef steak with wild mushroom sauce, truffle and fat Parmesan chips.

It was an excellent choice and by and large stopped me from staring jealously at my dining partner's Shepherd’s Pie.

The meat was nicely charred and light covering of peppercorns and slithers of garlic worked well with the creamy sauce wild mushroom sauce.

Pudding was a slightly less resoundingly successful choice.

Classic frozen berries with yoghurt sorbet, and a white chocolate sauce was classified as another Ivy favourite.

The berries were beautifully presented but the accompanying sorbet and sauce didn’t do enough to quell the intense sourness of the fruit.

Perhaps it’s one for those without a sweet tooth, but to me it was a tart of darkness.

And this time around my eye did wander to my dining partner’s pud – a sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel sauce, dates, clotted cream and gold flakes.

Fortunately she took pity on me and a merciful exchange of plates was agreed.

She was rewarded with one for the road, The Laurence Olivier Special (naturally) another Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru creation, a G n T with added elderflower and raspberry liqueurs.

I ended a thoroughly enjoyable meal with a glass of premier H2O. Orson probably would not have approved…