The White Horse, Richmond — Restaurant in London

A lovely local pub with friendly staff serving good drinks and excellent food. Don't be fooled by the discrete location though; the locals know this pub well and it's well frequented. There's an outside area with canopies and heat lamps in case the weather turns for the worse and the adjacent children's play area keeps the kids entertained and away from the adults. Basically, it's the perfect community pub!

Edit 09/2016: Such a shame that, after the five star review above, I now have to revise to two stars 😥. We used to come here ALL the time but, since the new "children not welcome after 8pm" rule, we don't go anymore. It's not that we liked to stay out late drinking while our children ran wild (quite the contrary, we have taught our children to be polite, respectful and always impeccably behaved in restaurants and pubs), no, we liked to come in for dinner - sometimes just us, sometimes with friends - but there is simply no way we can guarantee being finished and ready to leave by 8pm. Nor do I think i would want to be rushed into leaving by the curfew, rather than enjoy an after dinner coffee or aperitif. It's such a shame that this family pub, and it IS a family pub (beer garden opens onto children's playground!), has decided to take this stance. I really do hope they reconsider soon.

Edit 10/2016: Thank goodness common sense has prevailed. Spent a very pleasant evening with friends and family and delighted to see that the 'no children after 8pm' sign has finally disappeared. Ours were not the only children there but it was notable how well behaved all the little ones were. We ate, drank, made merry and were on our way by 9pm. The White Horse is once again my...

I'm afraid this pub promises a lot but fails to deliver. The only thing about it that isn't sub-par is perhaps the least important thing; the decor. I remember this place from about 10 years ago, when it first got a re-do. All very nice and trendy, but not too poncey. The food was really good and the service was equally impressive.

Unfortunately, it has gone steadily downhill since, bringing us to now, where they have followed the typical trajectory of somewhere that has a lazy manager. The food, one of it's selling points previously, is now mediocre, especially the Sunday roast. Not awful, but not special, and it needs to be for the price.

The service really pisses me off, to be frank. It's slow on food, worse on beer - just bad bar service, where you feel like you're not being acknowledged even when it's not that busy, plus there's always a puddle of beer on the bar and it generally looks grubby.

This lack of service extends to the outside area, which should be one of its selling points, but you will invariably find dirty tables that should have been cleared hours ago, with sticky blobs of ketchup etc. Just not what you expect from a posh pub, which it most certainly thinks it is.

Do yourself a favour and go to the Princes Head on Richmond green. Not the place to be seen in, but you will be treated like a valued customer and the food is just as good for 25% less money.

Get your act together and I don't mean by having lame, student-y quiz and music nights either, which is something they seem to think is the way to improve this fairly dire...

We called in early November and had our booking accepted for Christmas Day. We specifically asked if any deposit, or anything else, was needed, to which we were told ‘No, just turn up’. To our own fault we should have realised that this was unusual, and followed up, but being busy we took the person on the end of the phone at their word, and accepted the booking as made. Today, we turned up for our Christmas dinner to be told there was book record of it, and that the pub does not take walk-ins on Christmas Day. We explained that we had made a booking, and were certainly not ‘Walk-ins’ but this initially fell on deaf ears, being told in a variety of different ways that it must be us that made the mistake, perhaps having spoken to a different ‘White Horse’, until we showed the phone number in he call history on the phone. Ultimately, what happened here is that we were told we had a booking which was not recorded. Today, the manager did accommodate us, however, as you will see from the photo, it was essentially scraps of meat and potato, and not what we expected from a Christmas dinner. The manager did, to his credit, discount the bill, somewhat, after we’d already paid for a bottle of wine and a couple of mixed drinks at bar prices, however, on reflection, it was a terrible experience. I’m starving, and have just ordered pizza on Christmas Day - something I’ve never done before and hope to never be in the position...