Millie's Lounge at The Ned Review: The £70 Set Lunch I Nearly Didn't Review

Verdict: The £70 three course set lunch at Millie's Lounge is the best value meal I have eaten in the City this year, and I say that as someone who was not planning to review it.

Quick answer: Millie's Lounge at The Ned, on the doorstep of Bank station, serves a three course set lunch for £70 plus 14.5% service, with thick cut Scottish smoked salmon, a lamb Barnsley chop with its own pot of mint jus and a chocolate mousse the size of a saucepan, and it is worth booking for a group or client lunch.

• Where: Millie's Lounge, ground floor of The Ned, City of London. Bank station is on the doorstep.
• Visited: Tuesday 1 September 2026, lunchtime
• Price: £70 for three courses, plus a discretionary 14.5% service charge. I did not drink.
• Best for: business lunches, groups, a long lunch with friends
• Book ahead or walk in: we booked for nine. There were free tables around us, but book for a group.
• Hosted or self funded: self funded
• Prices correct at time of visit.

I was not going to review Millie's. Nine of us, a mastermind group lunch, a table full of people who wanted to talk business rather than watch me crawl round plates with a phone. I took a few photos and told myself that was it.

Then the bread arrived, then the salmon, then the lamb, and each course was better than the last. By the time a copper pan of chocolate mousse landed in front of me I had stopped pretending. This is a set menu that deserves the write up, so here it is.

Millie's is the all day restaurant on the ground floor of The Ned. When I stayed at The Ned we never had time for lunch here, and after this I consider that a mistake I have now fixed.

The set menu is short: five starters, five mains, five desserts, £70 for three courses. There is a plant based option on every course and a vegetarian starter. Here is the full menu from the day, straight off the printed card, so you can plan.

Starters: Millie's steak tartare with Burford Brown egg yolk and sourdough; smoked chicken Caesar with anchovies; pea, mint and spring onion soup with sourdough croutons; twice baked Winterdale Shaw Cheddar soufflé; Scottish smoked salmon with fennel salad, crème fraîche and soda bread.

Mains: 280g Shorthorn ribeye with chips; salmon fishcake with watercress, capers and seaweed hollandaise; breaded chicken breast with herb and garlic butter, fried egg and capers; lamb Barnsley chop with peas and mint jus; squash and mushroom pie with port and red onion jus.

Desserts: sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream; Millie's chocolate mousse; Bakewell tart with apricot compote and clotted cream; raw avocado chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet; a selection of British cheeses.

Before the starters, hot quarters of sourdough came out with salted French butter, wrapped like a present. I told myself I was not going to eat bread. I ate the whole lot.

Nine grown women sat there murmuring about bread. Someone said it was the butter. Someone else said it was because it was warm and fresh. Both right. It is the sort of thing that never makes it onto a menu and does more for your mood than half the mains in London.

I wanted the cheese soufflé. I always want the cheese soufflé. But I cannot always have what I want or I will end up the size of a house with the amount of food I taste for this site, so I went for the Scottish smoked salmon.

I love lamb when I am out, so the lamb Barnsley chop was never in doubt. It arrived as one big double chop, dark and glossy on the outside, pink and soft in the middle, next to a heap of crushed minted peas. First mouthful melted. I was already happy.

Five minutes in, the waiter came back with a small pot of mint jus for me. I had no idea it was coming and would not have complained without it. With it, the plate went from very good to the best thing I ate that week. Gravy: 10 out of 10.

The peas deserve a word. I am a chip shop mushy peas person and these were their posh cousin: crushed rather than puréed, minty, the right side of sweet. Give me those any day of the week.

Around the table: the breaded chicken breast came as a huge flattened schnitzel with a fried egg on top, capers and herb butter soaking into the crumb. The ribeye came with a tin cup of chips. There was a side of spinach and a bowl of chips doing the rounds too.

There was a lot to choose from. I went for Millie's chocolate mousse because I was full and thought it would be small.

It was not small. It arrived in what I can only describe as a small copper saucepan, dusted thick with cocoa, with a layer of soft chocolate sponge at the bottom for a bit of extra texture. It could feed two. I did not share.

The sticky toffee pudding across the table looked just as good: a dark pudding sitting in a pool of toffee sauce with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting off the top.

Yes. That is the whole point of this review. £70 in the City for three courses plus bread is not cheap, but these were not set menu portions. The salmon starter was bigger than most à la carte starters. The chop was a proper chop. The mousse was a saucepan.

Add the discretionary 14.5% service, which is printed on the menu and which I would not have taken off, and you are at about £80 a head before drinks. It was lunchtime so I stayed off the wine, which kept my bill at that. If you want a glass or two, budget for it.

Compare that to a starter, a main and a pudding off any hotel restaurant's à la carte menu in the Square Mile and it starts to look like a steal.

Nobody hurried nine women who wanted to talk. The gravy I did not know I needed arrived without asking. Plates were cleared quietly between courses and water kept coming.

I am a big fan of The Ned lately, and I think that goes back to how well they treated us when I stayed. Lunch here was the same: nothing showy, just people who know what they are doing, over and over again. Credit to the team.

When I stayed at The Ned we never ate on the ground floor, which now feels like the one thing I got wrong. If I stay again I will either arrive early or stay on an extra day and have the set lunch, whatever is on it that week. Read the stay review for the rooms and the rest; this lunch is the piece I missed.

• Go at lunchtime on a weekday. No music, half full, ideal for a meeting or a long catch up.
• Have the bread. Do not pretend you will not.
• Order the soufflé if you have more willpower than me, or the salmon if you want the biggest starter.
• The lamb comes with its own pot of jus. Wait for it before you plough through the peas.
• The chocolate mousse is big enough for two. Share it, or do not, but know what you are getting into.
• Bank station is right there, with the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines. For the District and Circle, walk along King William Street to Monument.
• Get your girlfriends together, or your mastermind group, or a client you want to impress without booking somewhere stuffy.
• I do not know whether the set menu runs at weekends. Check with The Ned before you plan a Saturday around it.

For more of my London eating, start at the London hub.

Worth it, and then some. For a business lunch, a group, or anyone who likes generous portions of things done properly, the £70 set menu at Millie's is one of the best value meals I have had in the City. Would I go back? Tomorrow. Next time I will have the soufflé and share the mousse. Maybe.

Find it: Millie's Lounge, The Ned, 27 Poultry, London EC2R 8AJ. Open in Google Maps. Book through The Ned's website.

How much is the set lunch at Millie's Lounge at The Ned? The set lunch at Millie's Lounge at The Ned costs £70 for three courses, and a discretionary 14.5% service charge is added to the bill, so expect around £80 a head before drinks. Prices include VAT. Bread and butter came before the starters at no extra charge. Prices correct at time of visit in September 2026.

What is on the set menu at Millie's Lounge? The Millie's Lounge set menu has five starters, five mains and five desserts, including steak tartare, twice baked Cheddar soufflé, smoked salmon, 280g Shorthorn ribeye, lamb Barnsley chop with mint jus, breaded chicken with a fried egg, sticky toffee pudding and Millie's chocolate mousse. Plant based options appear on every course. The menu changes, so check before you go.

Is Millie's Lounge at The Ned good for a business lunch? Millie's Lounge at The Ned is a very good business lunch spot. On a weekday lunchtime there was no music, plenty of free tables and other tables having meetings, so nine of us could talk across a long table without shouting. The £70 set menu keeps the bill predictable, and the service never hurried us.

What is the nearest Tube station to Millie's Lounge? Millie's Lounge is inside The Ned at Bank, so Bank station is the nearest Tube, about a minute's walk from the door, on the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines. For the District and Circle lines, walk along King William Street to Monument station, which takes a few minutes. There is no need for a taxi.

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