The Cork & Bottle., NW3

Occupying a prominent position at a sharp road junction near Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital is The White Horse, a large wedge shaped Victorian pub with the trademark tall arched windows running down the building’s exterior on each street. Inside is a fairly typical, spacious, opened out former Victorian pub with a central island bar which retains original glass inserts in the gantry. The architectural highlight is undoubtedly the splendid and unusual enamel panelled decorative ceiling which covers the entire ceiling area throughout the pub. Suspended from the ceiling are some of the large retro lampshades that seem to be very de rigeur in pubs like this. On a wall down one end of the room is a fine collection of ornate gilded mirrors. Furniture is fairly basic wooden tables and chairs with several long butchers block style tables clearly designed for large groups. A number of TV’s dotted round the pub were showing live football at a quiet sound level – this is certainly no sports bar – some tuned to Cardiff v West Ham on terrestrial TV, with others showing Newcastle v Sunderland on Sky. By choosing carefully where to position your bar stool, should you so choose, it was possible to keep an eye on both games simultaneously. Notably, although food appears to be a significant part of the offering, there’s no dedicated areas set aside and, on my visit, there was an unusual sprinkling of customers throughout the pub, with some clearly here for the football sharing space with family groups and the usual crowd of professional thirty somethings enjoying Sunday lunch. Except on Sunday, it seems that a Thai menu dominates – presumably a separate subcontracted operation, as is often the case. Real ales on were Doom Bar, Black Sheep, Spitfire and Caledonian 2.8% ( is that the ABV of the beer?). I didn’t detect much real ale trade or interest and the Doom Bar – at a pricey £ 3.85p – wasn’t brilliant. I found it difficult to conclude as to where this pub is trying to position itself – it seems to be trying to be all things to all men – and it appears to be a classic example of how an old style public and saloon bar format would be preferable. Door positioning would suggest that this was previously the case. I may pop in again if passing by, but it’s not worth going out of your way to get to