The Black Horse, Whitby

Pub SignMan left this review about The Black Horse

This is a cosy traditional two bar pub with a prime location on the narrow street leading to the nearby Abbey steps. The pub is split into a front lounge and rear bar, both with exposed floorboards and dark tongue and groove wall panelling beneath plain painted uppers. The front lounge has nice comfy banquette seating under the front window with some padded benches and low stools in support. The servery is at the rear of the room and has a dark wood counter and matching bar back with a nice small stained glass sash window that opens into the porch space behind the bar, possibly a remnant of a former jug and bottle set-up. The rear bar is split-level, with the servery along the right-hand wall of the initial lower level space. Hard backed banquettes provide some austere seating options down the left-hand wall, supplemented by several low stools. The bar has a dark wood counter, similar to the front bar, adorned with various decorative struts and a matching bar back with frosted glass and patterned inserts. The room’s main point of interest has to be the fine leaded windows with their stained glass ‘Black Horse Vaults’ centre pane. Décor includes knot displays, lots of photos of locals and their dogs, various old maps and a few photos of the surrounding area. Two steps at the rear of the room lead up to a raised seating area with a couple more tables and access to the toilets. The pub seems to be quite enterprising, offering a menu of ‘Yorkshire Tapas’ which all sounded very tempting, and selling custom-made facemasks with proceeds going to RNLI. When we arrived, the pub was at maximum capacity, but a very friendly barman happened to be outside taking a quick break and he suggested we hang around for a few minutes, as he was fairly sure there were a couple about to leave, and lo and behold, two minutes later, we were in and seated with a drink in front of us. The capacity issue was based on the pub’s Covid restrictions at time of visit and such limits to customer numbers may no longer apply.
Five handpulls offered a choice of Titanic Plum Porter, Adnams Southwold Bitter and Hambleton Untethered plus a couple of real ciders. I gave the Untethered a try and it was in excellent shape, slipping down nicely as we enjoyed the buzz from a full house. A few people were eating and the food we saw come past all looked very good – shame we’d already booked a table somewhere else.
There are quite a few traditional looking pubs on this side of the harbour, but this was the only one that really appealed to me. Good service and beer (and good-looking food) combined well in a traditional setting to create a memorable visit and I would definitely be keen to revisit this one the next time I’m back in town.

On 12^th November 2021 - rating: 8
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