Harden's survey result
Summary
This banking hall conversion just moments from the Bank of England “feels like a gentleman’s club” and “has become a City mainstay” for its “good-quality ‘school’ cooking”. “They understand the ‘time essence’ of the business lunch”, so “service comes at a good clip”.
Summary
“Decent British cooking, competently done” keeps trade ticking over at this converted banking hall over two floors in Threadneedle Street. “Definitely a businessperson’s restaurant”, it also provides an “exceptional breakfast”.
Summary
“Classic British dishes in a smart dining room” is the understated offer in this converted banking hall, “tucked away on Threadneedle Street”. “It doesn’t shout about its presence” and even fans can find it “a little boring”, but it makes a “reliable choice for business lunches, without melting the credit card”.
Summary
Good-enough “old and modern British dishes at sensible prices” help draw a City crowd to this dining room in a converted Square Mile banking hall. It’s ideal for business: “they understand that people need to be served, but not rushed, and then get back to work”.
Restaurant details
Prices
 Drinks |
|
|---|---|
| Wine per bottle | £24.00 |
| Filter Coffee | £2.50 |
 Extras |
|
|---|---|
| Service | 12.50% |
Harden's says...
The Mercer EC2
A grand and agreeable brasserie, handily located in the heart of the City; it offers good (and reasonably-priced) wines and friendly service, but seems to us to 'miss' fractionally on the food front.
The look and feel of a classic brasserie is, for our money, very difficult to beat, and this lofty former banking chamber - right in the heart of the Square Mile - has been nicely got up as a sort of brasserie de luxe (with tablecloths, and so on). It's also open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so this makes a handy rendezvous for City types at any time of day.
Other attractions include a fair degree of space and comfort, a good range of reasonably-priced wines (available by the carafe), and service that's trying very hard. On the basis of a lunch for one, though, the food - which is as much British as French in inspiration - struck us as rather incidental to the place's other attractions. The cooking, notably consistent, was never positively disappointing, but never quite rang any bells either.
Overall, though, this was in our view a pretty reasonable 'package', on which basis the attendance the Thursday lunchtime we visited was perhaps a touch disappointing (though we did visit before a recent rash of positive reviews elsewhere).
We do wonder if the name helps, as it's wrong in every way. For most Englishmen, 'The Mercer' probably suggests a gastropub, which this is no sense is; for NyLon hipsters, the name may evoke the mega-trendy SoHo hotel, with which it has equally little in common.
34 Threadneedle St, London, EC2R 8AY
| Number of Diners: | |
| Required Time: | |
Opening hours
| Monday | 7:30 am‑9:30 pm |
| Tuesday | 7:30 am‑9:30 pm |
| Wednesday | 7:30 am‑9:30 pm |
| Thursday | 7:30 am‑9:30 pm |
| Friday | 7:30 am‑9:30 pm |
| Saturday | CLOSED |
| Sunday | CLOSED |
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