Regular readers of this magazine will be aware of our admiration for the good people at TY Harbor Brewery, operators not only of the eponymous Tenozu Island bar-restaurant but also of Cicada, Beacon, Breadworks, and Waterline. So we greeted the news of their latest venture, Ivy Place in fashionable Daikanyama, with justifiable excitement. As with the other eateries in the group, Ivy Place has its own clear identity and aims to offer something for everyone. It’s a brave challenge, but one which they manage to pull off with some panache in relaxed modern café style for breakfast and lunch, before a change of pace in the evening.

The venue itself is simply wonderful, with splendid terrace seating for al fresco types and a couple of hundred spots in the bar and restaurant areas indoors. It’s immediately clear that our fellow diners feel at home - the whole place has the pleasant, warm buzz that restaurants can only achieve when guests feel comfortable, and which often takes months or years to achieve. Somehow Ivy Place has managed it in a week.

We were delighted to find that Ivy Place stocks TY Harbor home brews, and perused the menu (always a treat at a new establishment) over an old favorite. Despite being served in an American pint, their Amber Ale is delightfully English, packed full of flavor, and is a perfect introduction to Ivy Place’s “Global Comfort Food” concept. We quaffed our pints along with a mezze of dips (1200 yen). Hummus and Baba Ghanough were – as they should be – fresh, simple and satisfying accompaniments to piping hot home-made pita. The carrot puree surprised us by being the best of a very good bunch, good enough in fact for us to demand more bread.

We then turned our attention to the “cold smoked seafood bar,” an interesting concept in a city obsessed with sashimi. The name could perhaps benefit from the insertion of a hyphen as the key here is not that the fish is served cold (it is), nor that it’s smoked (it is). It’s that it’s cold-smoked. The process infuses the fish with flavor and adds firmness to the textures whilst retaining the freshness that makes seafood such a treat. Our platter (2,200 yen) was comprised of generous portions of swordfish, tuna, salmon and – our personal favorite – scallops which had emerged from the smoking process firm, smooth and delightfully sweet. Better still, the seafood married perfectly with the splendid slightly sparkling Austrian Gruner Veltliner (bottle, 6500 yen ), selected from the “Adventurous Whites” section of the wine list on the advice of our waiter.

A glance at a neighboring table led us towards our next choice, a beautifully colorful flatbread pizza with roasted zucchini and peppers, fragrant basil pesto and unctuous mozzarella (1,300 yen). The perfectly crisp supermodel-thin base made the dish just light enough to qualify as an appetizer. It also allowed for a short cooking time, thus letting the vegetables retain their freshness and bite. In fact, the pizza was so good that it was in danger of derailing this review as we could quite happily have neglected the rest of the menu by working our way through the other four varieties on offer.

But work is work, so we soldiered on and left the pizza behind. When our next course arrived we were glad to have done so. Swordfish, grilled to superbly succulent perfection, was served with a tangy olive relish and quinoa salad (2000 yen). On seeking a wine recommendation we were somewhat surprised to be pointed in the direction of a “Satisfying Red” but the South African Syrah chosen for us (1,350 yen glass or 6,750 bottle) was sublimely smooth and worked perfectly with the strength of the olive. We chose a side order of fritters (900 yen) to add substance to the fish and were delighted to find that their gouda and shitake filling also hit it off well with the Syrah.

The dessert menu was full of temptations but we finally settled on pumpkin, sweet potato, and maple cake (900 yen) served with marscapone and pecans. It’s a dish that’s all about textures and with coffee was a fine way to cap a terrific meal. We lingered as long as the last train would allow before strolling to the station eagerly discussing the possibility of moving to Daikanyama. That may seem rather extreme, but Ivy Place is extremely good.