There are people who go there all the time – Neil and Christine Hamilton for example – who never pay, and others who have accounts and just get up and leave without having to produce a credit card Charles Saatchi once ate there every night for two weeks. I even played Scrabble with him on a corner table.Yet the Ivy is suprisingly un?tist No one large table ever dominates the room It's like getting a walk-on part in a movie for one night. Try the alternatives and you will see why it is still in pole position – the other night Nobu was full of screaming eurotrash and if you can put up with the singing at Momo, you are more patient than me. Yes, we know Tony and Cherie and Guy and Madonna adore Locanda Locatelli, at the back of Portman Square The food is excellent. But if you want your spirits lifting, go and join the party at the Ivy.The BattleIn the red corner we have Luke Johnson, son of the right-wing journalist Paul, and the man who made Pizza Express a household name.

Rarely seen eating in his own restaurants, Johnson is the opposite of the celebrity restaurant owner – shy, unflashy and nervous of the press. Few of the Ivy's diners would recognise him if he sat next to them: unless, that is, they had seen the BBC's Back To The Floor two years ago, in which Johnson spent a day as a waiter at one of his Belgo branches. He didn't do well, quickly running out of patience with carping staff before telling the producers that they could "stick their programme" and storming off the set.Giuliano Lotto, his opponent, is a very different animal. Raised in a wealthy Italian family, he is a founder of A-Z Restaurants, which runs Zafferano, L'Oranger and Aubergine. Charming and flamboyant (with "the most fantastic eyes", according to one ex-colleague), he couldn't be more different to Johnson. Last week he mounted a counter bid for Signature, the Ivy's parent company And if he wins, his style will be very different.

"He'll be there every night," says another ex-colleague.This would be in keeping. Although it has featured on the London scene since before the war, and was a favoured haunt of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, the Ivy was strictly a thespian watering hole until 1990 when Christopher Corbin and Jeremy King – legends in the restaurant trade in their own right – took over. They understood that the secret of restaurant magic is the less you see, the more you believe. The Ivy, in contrast to the rest of today's self-reflexive celebrity dining scene, has never courted PR. Instead, King walked the floor, lightly bearing an encyclopaedic knowledge of exactly who was writing, directing, producing and acting in what.Four years ago they sold the Ivy to Luke Johnson's Belgo Restaurants, now Signature. Since then, Johnson has seen the share price of his group slump as its restaurant chains have failed to meet expectations.