The Black Horse

Okay so I have been awaiting the reopening of The Black Horse after its total refurb. It has been about a week and a half since opening night and I finally had the chance to get in there and try a bit of Sunday lunch, or so I though! Arriving at about 1:40pm I found it not too busy, a good thing as there were plently of tables, maybe word hasn’t got round yet. Well alarm bells should maybe have rung from the start, they have plenty of handpull pumps but the bar staff dont seem totally able to pull a decent pint. Mine was a soaking mess after overflowing several times and another patron had cause to bring one back because of too much head. Anyway I looked over at an empty dining area and 2 empty tables in the pub only to be told they didnt have anymore space for dinner as they were fully booked. Only 1 table was eating and even if all tables in restaurant were booked the tables in the pub werent. Clearly serving one group of about 8 and a dessert to an elderly couple was all the kitchen could cope with. We sat there for 30 minutes but the horde of diners never materialised. I will give them the benefit of the doubt as it hasnt been open long but the lacklustre menu and shambling performance this weekend makes me feel that the new look may be all style over substance. (UPDATE) Ok so I went here on Friday night for a bit of food and a few drinks and it wasn’t too bad. The steak I had was average and not too massively overcooked (medium when I ordered rare but this is a situation I have become used to everywhere I go). The wine we had was decent for £18.50 and the couple of pints of Old Hooky I had were very nice. However, the bar only has 1 card machine and 1 touch screen till for food and drink, this caused a lot of hold ups in a relatively empty pub for a Friday night. The toilets already have a broken toilet seat and a tap the top had fallen off. The food was good whilst being simply nothing more than that. It’s just straight up pub food so indistinct that I’m struggling to remember what was on the menu the following day. Little things like this, the fact the toilets are already falling apart and the bar staff dont seem all that efficient have kept the original rating the same. If it was a school report I’d say The Black Horse has a lot of potential but it doesn’t apply itself and would rather sit at the back of class joking with its mates. 3 out of 5.

I liked the place before and I think it is also nice now after the refurbishment, so I will visit it as often as possible though i think now there are a bit morepeople than before, but hey, there is nothing wrong with that

Best garden in Barnet and actually the best Greene King IPA I’ve had in months.

Unfortunately the latter is not really saying much..swill gets just about drinkable at best and when ordering the bile is impossible without getting in the way of the locals and (insert sporting event here), it really isn’t worth all this for a few fleeting moments of sunlight.