milk

i've heard a lot about m1lk recently - great reviews and massive queues. brunch in balham with amy allen seemed too good an opportunity not to see if we could squeeze in and get a table for 2, and luck being on our side we got to sit straight down!

i ordered the cornbread with honey, some kind of australian chai drink and a smoothie. the smoothie was fantastic, huge, and felt so healthy i could've cried. the cornbread, while tasty and surprisingly good value, was average and i couldn't help but wonder what all the fuss was about. however amy's glowing review of her food is clearly why thisplaceis so popular, as i've never seen a girl so happy with eggs in a frying pan. 

worth checking out but not if you're gonna be queueing for half an hour, and definitely get a smoothie.

an absolutely wonderfulplaceto start your day with the best and most indulging breakfast made with the freshest ingredients and with the help of a very friendly and professional staff as well.

amazingplacein london. i love the food. can’t wait to come back here again. congratulations to the staff.

at the end of balham’s bustling hildreth street is milk. chances are you’ve heard of it: it’s serving the kind of brunch perfectly catered to the hip young professionals and insta-conscious yummy mummies that frequent the area. you know the deal, in-house baked bread, locally sourced produce and free-range eggs. i’m not hating – thisplaceis legit, and the food actually tastes as good as it looks.

on a lazy english holiday there is nothing better then to hang out with family and friends over a brunch. we heard a lot aboutplacecalled "m1lk". puzzled why their logo reads "m1lk " and his would one pronounce it 😵😵😵 built the suspense in us to try it.
it's just a minutes walk away from behlam tube station.

ambience4/5:it's a smallplaceinside with really long queues outside. they have some sitting outside too.
it's a very cosy and a very buzzy place. a neon pink "m1lk" sign hangs on the white brick wall behind a counter adorned with some amazing mouth watering cakes. framed butterflies, old photos, floor to ceiling windows and an open kitchen all add to the warm english vibes thisplacegives.

food4.5/5: food is delicious, filling and worth waiting for in long queue.
beverages
coffee and macchiato were perfect 😍. blueberry, banana and apple smoothie was served in a glass bottle and delicious. the hot chocolate was dark, rich, mind blowing and out of the world.

food - egg benedict with bacon was to die for probably the best in london!! poached egg with salmon
crumpets, honey, goat curd and lavender were all awesome. the food was present very stylishly and tasted great ❤.

service4/5: only queuing up the line is a problem but once you are in, then the atmosphere, food, open kitchen all get on to you!!!
staff is very friendly and service is excellent.

if you are bored of your standard breakfast slop this is theplacefor you. it's easy to see why the weekend brunch crowds flock to milk😊😊😊.

a great conversation was sparked on twitter last week when i prompted friends and followers for aussie brunch places that are off the radar (or mine at least) after the success of daisy green in marble arch (review here). one that people seemed to be really fighting for was somewhere called milk in balham. i’d never been to balham – i didn’t even know where it was or what line i would need to take. catching up with mattthelist recently – he backed up theplaceand said that it was down in our neck of the woods (souf london). so this weekend i made the trek.

today i walked into a hipster café. at least i think that’s what it was, judging by the young guys with squared off beards, man buns and skinny trousers with saggy bums (the trousers, not the guys), and the insistence of food with detailed pedigree on the menu. they also seem toplacemuch emphasis on foraging, although where exactly they forage in balham, i’m not too sure. and it’s probably best not to delve too deely into what the beardies forage for there exactly. dandelions by the side of balham high street, maybe? let’s just skim over that, shall we?

there is usually a queue for thisplacebut we got so lucky on a saturday morning.

we both opted for the breakfast burger which was sausage ( in a patty) bacon, hash browns, scrambled egg and some form of tomato relish.

it was just what i needed on a saturday morning!

went on a wednesday for brunch and the food was delicious. very special version of muffins with eggs, bacon and sausage. however theplacewas very busy so service was really slow. waited quite a long time for our food, and when it arrived we had to wait a while for cutlery while our food got cold. the waiting staff looked really stressed and i felt really bad for them because they were clearly under staffed. despite this the food was brilliant!

posted on march 14, 2015 by a spoonful of sugar i love brunch. there really is nothing better at the weekend than hanging out with your friends over good food and a few bloody mary’s/proseccos.  my weekend brunches are probably my favourite meals of the week and i love looking for new places to go. recently, i was rather surprised when my friend cassie , who rarely travels south of the river, suggested we have brunch at m1lk in balham.  she had recently met a chef called dan ingram who worked there and had heard great things about it. i used to live in balham in what seems like another lifetime ago. back then there were no delis, there was no waitrose, there was nowhere nice to hang out except one little cafe but because it was the onlyplaceworth going at the weekends it was understandably impossible to get a table there. it’s a very different story now. i arrived at m1lk, which is at the end of hildreth street market, just a minute’s walk from balham tube station, at 10.30am on a very cold morning, and met cassie who was already standing in the queue holding a hot cup of coffee. obviously, as is the case with everywhere i seem to want to eat in, you can’t book. its a smallplaceinside and they had put some seating outside but there was no way i was sitting in the freezing cold whilst eating my breakfast. so we queued until a table became available inside, catching up on the gossip whilst hopping from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. as soon as we were ushered inside, i got really excited. its very cosy and very buzzy. a neon pink ‘m1lk’ sign hangs on the white-washed, semi-stripped brick wall behind a counter adorned with incredible looking cakes and the odd doll’s head. framed butterflies, old photos, floor to ceiling windows, mis-matched furniture and crockery, an open kitchen in the corner…i loved it instantly. we sat down, ordered coffee and tea and were handed our menus. i wanted to eat everything. we kept seeing food coming out of the kitchen and being p

as soon as my food arrived i knew, there and then, that this is theplacei'll be frequenting for my saturday brunch fix. small in size, big in reputation and it most certainly lives up to it.

with the service being super fast, my poached eggs on sourdough bread did not disappoint, with a side order of smashed avo that was so fresh it instantly perks you up.

ideal for a hangover brunch to chat with your friends about the happenings of the evening before, thisplacereally is on point. also if your in need of a thirst quench get one of the pint smoothies, fresh and zingy (if that's a word?) you'll definitely be thanking me later. cannot fault thisplaceat all.

i went to thisplacefor breakfast this morning and it was really good fun. we arrived at 9.00 on a tuesday morning, we were informed there was a 15 minute wait (which was accurate), so we queued (seems to be the one thing in london at the moment) and in we went.

the first thing you'll notice is how friendly and attentive the staff. a great example to so many other restaurants in central that think they can be rude, just because of great location. they played some really fun tunes too.

i ate heuvos al benny (chorizo sausage, poached eggs, peppers and chilli); it looked spectacular and  tasted amazing! perfect poached eggs! my friend ordered pancakes with berries and cream and again, it was delightful. the staffs were only too happy to bring us extra maple syrup too! theplacecould maybe do with a lick of paint, it certainly isn't swanky, but the food was great and a wonderful start to the day! i'd recommend the coffees too.

i’ve heard all about the brunch service at m1lk - i’ve heard about the great coffee, quirky twists on classic dishes, and the legendary line that spills down the street. this all made me very curious and so on a lazy london sunday, a certain someone and i made the short trip to balham to quell my curiosity. from that excursion i can only confirm that the ridiculously long line spiralling down hildreth street is not stuff of legend, it most definitely exists and is fairly slow moving. so as people who don’t share the english’s love of queuing, we decided to give it a miss and i was still left wondering. that is until earlier this week when i had the good fortune to meet a friend for lunch, in balham, on a weekday- what are the odds?! as soon as you walk in you’re hit by the undeniably hipster decor, but also the size, no wonder the lines are out the door because thisplaceis cosy! despite it being a miserably cold day, m1lk still had a steady flow of customers and we were lucky to nab a little table when we did. while the menu is pretty short, we did engage in a lot of umming and ahhing as a lot of it appealed but in the end we went for a hot chocolate and ‘sweet maria’, and a ‘lois’ smoothie and ‘young betty’. first up, the drinks were excellent- my hot chocolate was actually dark and rich, unlike so many pitifully milky ones i’ve had in london, and i was emphatically informed that the lois smoothie of blueberry, banana, and apple was amazing. we were however, less emphatically impressed by the food. the ‘sweet maria’, sweetcorn fritters, haloumi, avocado, kasundi and lime, was probably a little heavy handed on the kasundi. that tangy, tomato-based relish covered everything, and those poor limp little fritters had no chance, soon disintegrating into a bit of a battery mush. thank goodness they had the good sense to provide a generous dollop of smashed avo and that wedge of lime to cut through the rich oiliness. the ‘young betty’, poached eggs and drycured bacon on

as soon as you walk in you’re hit by the undeniably hipster decor, but also the size, no wonder the lines are out the door because thisplaceis cosy! despite it being a miserably cold weekday, m1lk still had a steady flow of customers and we were lucky to nab a little table when we did. while the menu is pretty short, we did engage in a lot of umming and ahhing as a lot of it appealed but in the end we went for a hot chocolate and ‘sweet maria’, and a ‘lois’ smoothie and ‘young betty’.

first up, the drinks were excellent- my hot chocolate was actually dark and rich, unlike so many pitifully milky ones i’ve had in london, and i was emphatically informed that the lois smoothie of blueberry, banana, and apple was amazing. we were however, less emphatically impressed by the food. the ‘sweet maria’, sweetcorn fritters, haloumi, avocado, kasundi and lime, was probably a little heavy handed on the kasundi. that tangy, tomato-based relish covered everything, and those poor limp little fritters had no chance, soon disintegrating into a bit of a battery mush. thank goodness they had the good sense to provide a generous dollop of smashed avo and that wedge of lime to cut through the rich oiliness. the ‘young betty’, poached eggs and drycured bacon on grilled sourdough with burnt butter hollandaise, looked lovely when she arrived but really let down the team with overcooked eggs. bottom line, poached eggs need to have runny yolks, and these ones did not.

i really wanted to love m1lk but based on this experience, i was pretty underwhelmed... but perhaps they were having an off day?

read the full story over on the blog!

you always get a good feeling about aplacethat has the standard long queue of people waiting eagerly to get in there... almost wondering what all the fuss is about for having to stand around while your stomach is making those hideous grumbling sounds. no guesses as to how i was feeling.  

m1lk. located in a fantastic little pocket of south west london, not too far from the ever cool clapham and only a short train ride from fulham broadway, is certainly a trendy wee spot to hang out on a sunday.

the fact that this hipster cafe is run by australians is definitely double brownie points in my books. as they say there is nothing like a bit of home away from home and i do need to feel this connection every now and again. 

the sweet corn fritters caught my attention. with added lashes of bacon, a dollop of my favourite - avocado, grilled halloumi, drizzled with a dash of lime and some mild kasundi relish. my friend had the pouched eggs on sourdough toast which looked equally as good. decent sized servings especially if you have an appetite to fill. you must also try the juice blended fruit smoothies which come in pretty large milk bottles (seems to be the rage) i had the lauren which consisted of banana, strawberry and mango and looking around the room seemed to be a hit with almost everyone.  

if you are a lover of coffee - which i assume most are these days then you wont be disappointed with their antipodean style that they have on offer. did i also mention that they bake cakes? although i missed the opportunity to trial one i did eye up the huge sized lamington looking very edible. originating from australia as a famous dessert and made from sponge, chocolate sauce and coconut, im guessing they would be hard to find anywhere else around london so i recommend you do try one from here and let me know what you think! 

not surprised at all by the fact that thisplaceis highly popular and always busy. a greatplaceto meet up with a group of friends on the weekend with no fuss, casual surroundings but a word of warning - get their early unless you are happy to wait around....it will still be totally worth the wait.