Ned's Club Washington, DC

It Costs $100K Just to Get In the Door at This Luxe Members-Only Restaurant | Eater DC

"Accessible only to the club's “founding global members” — a by-invitation tier with a whopping $100,000 initiation fee and $15,000 in monthly dues (in comparison, normal members pay $5,000 upfront and $5,000 per year) — the ultra-exclusive dining room currently counts 100 members and has a waitlist, per a rep. The menu touts prime beef from Texas’s famed Four Sixes — “a fourth-generation ranch raising purebred Angus Black Baldys” — the only other U.S. restaurant serving it being the Four Sixes Steakhouse pop-up inside the Wynn Las Vegas; cuts appear as filet, (bone-in) ribeye, A5 wagyu, and New York strip, plus a braised short rib entrée topped with black truffles. Surf-and-turf offerings and starters include lobster bisque, shrimp cocktail, and caviar-topped oysters; mains also list roasted half chicken with duck-fat potatoes, Virginia trout, and whole lobster dusted with Old Bay. The room directly overlooks the U.S. Treasury and the Washington Monument, and “there is no other restaurant in D.C. that has that close of a view to the White House,” per a rep. The design embraces a midcentury, Kennedy-era aesthetic with Tiffany-esque stained glass windows, a golden canopy of circular pendant lights, and a private martini bar; members can “call dibs on their own 'regular' table in the room and enjoy 'high-end' customized perks based on their known preferences every time they dine.” Comparisons have been drawn to downtown’s BLT Prime, where the then-45th president reportedly had his own booth and waiters followed “a ridiculous instruction manual” on how he likes his Diet Coke poured in seven steps." - Tierney Plumb