M

M seems to be a luxury high end bar and restaurant designed to cater for the business men and bankers working in the City part of London. It offers a variety of spaces, a large open space restaurant area, private dining rooms, an upstairs bar and a games room that I would describe as a luxury mancave.
The menu is quite amazing and expensive, with high quality steaks the most expensive of which will cost you a few hundred pounds and the cocktail selection will set you back about £15 per drink. While the pricing does reflect the high quality of the restaurant it can also be a setback.
Located right next to Bank, it comes as the expensive alternative to the many cheap pubs in the area and, while perfect for a special occasion or a client lunch, it fails to be the regular watering hole for after work drinks that its target customers would pick. As a result it always appears to be quite empty and dead, a fact highlighted even more by how big a venue it is.
Despite all that, I do think M is a quality bar worth visiting. While I don’t see it as being the hot spot that is always crowded, it’s definitely a great place for a special occasion where you can have a high quality meal and drinks. Besides, sometimes having a nice meal in an actually peaceful venue with great ambience and only the people you want to spend the night with around is a great advantage.

I have honestly never had such a bad experience in a restaurant as I did today in ‘M’.
I nipped across the city to have my usual Thursday lunch with my sister and we thought we’d try this place. We walked in and asked for a table for two. The place was pretty much deserted, but still we got the bullshit umming and ahhing about whether they could find a table for us in their almost empty cast dining room. They then wanted our surname «for reference». Give our reactions later, I now see why they have implemented this process!
«Will you want the grill menu or the raw menu?» The hostess asked us. «Not sure until we know what the hell you are talking about!» We answered.
We were shown to a fairly uncomfortable table right in the middle of a sea of empty tables. No, we couldn’t have a table round the outside — they were all being used by invisible people. Or ghosts.
We were given 4 different menus. The raw menu, the grill menu (which confusingly had some of the raw menu repeated on it) a wine menu and a lunch ‘Polo 28″ menu. There wasn’t actually that much in each menu, so it didn’t take long for my sister to see the risotto she wanted an I spotted some sashimi and a tofu salad for myself.
Although there were many many staff members (who incidentally were dressed somewhere between a French peasant and BA cabin crew) we couldn’t seem to get the attention of anyone. The invisible ghosts were obviously very demanding.
We finally flagged down a stewardess, sorry, waitress, and asked to order. Yes she said disappearing.
Well over five minutes later, we got someone else who looked like they might help, as she got her pen out. Which menu would you like to order from? I explained that j was having some raw stuff (fish to be exact) and my sister wanted the risotto. She simply said «No you can’t do that» and walked off. She came back some time later with a French peasant type guy with comedy moustache, who told us that we both had to order from the same menu.
THEN WHY HAVE TWO MENUS?!
Having wasted 30 minutes of our lunch hour by this time, we just walked out and went next door to Brasserie Blanc. They didn’t mess us around or try to make us jump to their tune.
This place is set up for the owners, not for the customers. They are not high end or good enough to demand eccentric rules be followed and frankly I expect a restaurant to put my needs first, or I don’t pay them.

Re-​visited with some friends, who habituate this place in the evening. Booked ahead– mid week, we were the only people there, bar staff, for a good hour and a half. Breakfasts were pronounced «OK», although the breakfast ramen was deemed uninteresting (and deducted from the bill) and the «M breakfast «was missing one of the advertised elements. Friendly and seemingly efficient staff, but overall the breakfasts here seem a triumph of form over function.