May 31, 2007

US & Canada | US | California | San Diego

The Ivy: Bringing Sexy Back

By Tiffany Hawk

A new boutique hotel raises the roof temperature in San Diego.

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San Diego might be called sunny, or sweet, perhaps even cute, never sexy. But the just-opened Ivy Hotel is determined to heat things up. It isn’t the first hip hotel in the hood. Ever since PetCo Park opened in 2004, stylish digs have started to sprout in the Gas Lamp Quarter and its bordering ex-warehouse wasteland called the East Village — namely, Hotel Solamar, The Keating, and the revived U.S. Grant. But the Ivy isn’t just the latest, it’s the flashiest: a little Vegas (the nightclub stings you for a $20 cover); even a little Liberace (the lobby has woven buffalo-skin columns, zebra wood walls and fluffy sheepskin sofas).

The first words that came to mind when I stepped inside: sensual and provocative. As is the Quarter Kitchen menu by Alain Ducasse veteran Damon Gordon, who makes popular dishes exotic. His version of the ubiquitous San Diego taco? A potato shell filled with horseradish, red onion, and caviar. But it’s Eden, the pimped-out rooftop bar (a San Diego must, as patrons of JSix, Stingaree and Altitude Skybar well know), plus Envy, the subterranean nightclub, that are pulling in the beautiful people. Scenesters who choose to get a room will find an Omaha bed covered with a lamb’s wool comforter. And infinitely more alluring than the views of downtown is the view inside — straight into the glass-encased shower. Steamy? With a manifesto chock full of words like mischief, whispers, secrets, and senses, the Ivy likes to think so.