Horse & Jockey, Nuneaton

Official site of Horse & Jockey - www.horsejockey.co.uk

Official site of Horse & Jockey - www.horsejockey.co.uk

This is a detached pub/restaurant, with patio and beer garden areas. It looks Georgian, and has been in its current format and with the same name since the Victorian pariod. The building is of stone and brick, being nicely white rendered on the facade, with pale green paintwork around the door and windows. It consists of more than one building and has a nice projecting porch. The pub was taken over by the Black Horse restuarant in Bosworth, and is now very modern inside. It is an L-shape on the whole, with a side 'bar' area, and the rest being a restaurant extending way back. This is in pastel colours with wood, moody lighting, bistro art, high backed comfy chairs etc - perfectly fine for a pleasant restaurant. I am interested in the pub side, and of course, it isn't a ba - I guess, to the trained eye, it is a stylish fusion of colour and fabric, having the romance of candles and twigs and the exquisite shock of the rough stone juxtaposed with the smooth white plaster, the wood floor and beamed ceiling. To my untrained eyes, it looks like clearance stuff in an Ikea basement; pouffes, stools, sofas and US postage stamp low chairs awaiting disposal - still, that shows I have no, or different tastes. A few horse pictures and some jockey silks give a little grounding of reality and a nod to the pub name. There was no TV that i saw and the music was easy listening and at a decent level. The service was friendly and a few diners were in - nobody being in the 'bar'. Beer; usual tap stuff with Peroni, but on handpull there was London Pride, Adnams' Southwold and Hook Norton's Hooky Bitter - which was a tad too cold. Clearly, not my kind of decor, but the modernists will love it i am sure. The decent choice of real ale means i would stop off for one again - but i wouild stand at the serving bar!