Pubs and Bars / Pub of the Week
Pub of the Week: The White Horse
Taxidermied ducks have replaced horse brasses in the top level dining room of the White Horse in Westbury-on-Trym, but a wheel arch on the wood panelled wall opposite the bar is a reminder of this pub in days not long gone by.
It is now exactly a year since the 300-year-old former coaching inn reopened under new owners Garth and Katie Jackson, and it was only a few months later that the White Horse was awarded an AA rosette for the standard of its food and service.
In recent incarnations it would have been unthinkable to have game on the menu. Now, on a recent Thursday, preparations were in full swing for an evening of local game shot by Ian Bullus at a price of £50 per person which included a wine flight prepared by RS Wines of Ashton.
It’s always refreshing to see a long list of local suppliers. At the White Horse these are all displayed at the back of a menu sewed into an old encyclopaedia.
Have coffee from one of these suppliers, Wogan of St Jude’s, as part of afternoon teas served from Wednesday to Saturday. It’s £6 for a cream tea, £12 for a traditional afternoon tea, £15 with added Prosecco and £5 for a children’s version.
Tribute and Butcombe were the two ales on cask recently, with a couple of other beer options from London’s Meantime brewery, more than a dozen wines available by the glass (with a new biodynamic section coming soon), cocktails, mocktails, pitchers and a spirit menu dominated by gin, including White Horse Gin made especially for the pub by Psychopomp of Montpelier.
In a clear indication of just how much this pub has changed under its new owners, a crisp linen table cloth lies on a circular table in the former snug which is now the private dining room.
The former Foresters just up the road has been transformed into a Tesco Express and the White Horse has had its own transformation from a pub into a gastropub, that with its monthly fine dining evenings and regular afternoon teas is now decidedly more gastro than pub.
The White Horse, 24 High Street, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, BS9 3DZ
0117 329 4900
Photos by Darren Shepherd