The White Horse, Richmond

Great pub!. As recent transplants to Richmond we are so excited to live around the corner from this great pub. It has all the ingredients to make for a perfect local hangout...very good food, exceptionally friendly staff, great selection of wine and beer, and a cute and comfy decor. Our favorite detail: we wanted to try a dessert takeaway at the end of our meal, and not many pubs will accommodate this request but this place went out of its way to get us what we asked for...including giving us the china plate and little ramekin it was served on which we returned the next day! We were smiling all the way home as I carefully carried this plate full of deliciousness.

A hidden gem. I love the White Horse and have seen it in many different styles over the years, but at the moment it is truely at its best. I eat in here at least once a week and have never had a bad thing to say about the place. The service is great and the food is fantasic. I'm also really impressed with the wine list and the laid back attitude that you get here. This place could easily be arrogant due to its location and "gastro pub" offer, but it isn't at all. The White Horse is a local pub with amazing food and a great personality. You should really go there, for me I love the fact that they always have lots of fish on the menu and that if I wanted anything a bit different they would do their hardest to make this happen. Sunday roasts are spot on The chocolate pudding is well worth the wait (cooked fresh so takes a while to come out)

All in all, a great place, best pub food you will ever have!

I disagree that this is just another gastro pub menu - it is more than this.

What a treat these folk who live in the Richmond Alberts have. Firstly The White Horse itself, a food-led pub who proclaim to cook cuisine using fresh daily ingredients, but also the infamous Alberts deli right next door. All within a stones throw of one of the most popular parts in Richmond.

The pub is tucked away in the hill side slopes toward Richmond Park and East Sheen. It's also not too far from the main thoroughfare of Richmond town centre, a welcome reprieve from the weekend shoppers who ascend the High Street most Saturdays and Sundays. 

It looks like a typical British pub outside but inside it has a slight bookish formality about it with leather and pin cushion seating. Tucked away at the back is an outdoor eating area, and on this day it was unsurprisingly populated by the stroller mafioso.

We were approached immediately by serving staff when we arrived, they were very pleasant and helpful and offered us each a menu that was clipped to big hardback children's books. It suits the old formal library like theme of the pub. The menu had a good range, I like that there was everything on it from salt and pepper squid to beef tartare with quail yolk, burger and triple chips to seared tuna with fennel. Complete at that.
Having recently tried the crab at The Crown in Twickenham (my post tennis staple) I opted once again for the crab and avocado mousse with tomato jelly. The chic geek had the seared scallops with octopus, carpaccio and braised fennel.

Now the crab was bountiful and served in a glass bowl topped with mousse and crisped bread. It had a very clean natural flavour, a peppery finish and worked well with the avocado mousse which was especially creamy. The jelly added an interesting dynamic, but really didn't work well. It was brown in colour, indeed it tasted of tomato but more like a stock, I would have loved a sweeter version or say like a chilli jam, so where I'd hit the skids, the chic geek lucked out.
He'd ordered the scallops and was issued a beautifully presented plate of fare. When I tasted the seared scallops there was an immediate hit of aniseed from the braised fennel and then a good lathering of smokiness. It was deliciously soft fleshy meat and the octopus, tender and light, equally good. It was a faultless delicious dish one would see at any fine dining establishment and a blinkin good one at that.

For mains I once again went with seafood - pan roasted Salmon, peas and runner beans with new potatoes and crispy quail eggs. My counter part had the pan roasted pheasant, stuffed roasted thigh with celeriac gratin, girolles and cherry vinegar pearls.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Salmon with super crispy skin, moist flaky fish and a very decent butter sauce, it actually had lemon flavour. So often Salmon dishes have lemon flavour in the sauce but it must go walk-about, by the time I get it, often its evaporated during the cooking. Nailed it on this one. Potatoes also perfectly waxy in texture, and the runner beans added sweetness. The crispy quail eggs gave the dish a nice visual touch, luxuriousness. Finally the plate was lifted with shoots of coriander leaf, definitely a spoil yourself dish.

The pan roasted pheasant was a served with a stuffed thigh along with girolles and the celeriac gratin - which was sublime. The cherry vinegar pearls had an intense sharp zing, and worked well with the gamy meat. The main pheasant was a little dry, I think a touch salty but the thigh, girolles and gratin were excellent. 

The dessert of mango creme brulee with home made cookie came out in a mini pot - the mango was like a tropical puree hidden under the creme. The mango was a little fibrous, nothing to do with the execution but rather the type of mango used (this may have something to do with the more popular Indian mango being recently banned by the EU) it worked nicely with the creme brulee and the crispy sweet top helped make this a scrumptious sweet. It was very more-ish indeed. 

Overall, The White Horse has excellent food, a great dining environment with great facilities, and good selection of beers. The staff were excellent. They demonstrated outstanding cuisine with the likes of the scallops and braised fennel and if they continued down that path of presentation, execution and flavour they'd be emulating the best fine dining restaurants around.

For more photo's and restaurants in Richmond and Twickenham check out:

Daniela and the team were absolutely amazing. We didn’t have a booking and they accommodated all 7 of us and 2 dogs. I had the roast lamb which was sensational, and the ox cheek pasta and burger that my friends had were all really good. Could not recommend this place enough. Daniela was so kind, 10/10.

Very good Sunday lunch in a fairly quiet pub. Not too pricey. Friendly staff, nice atmosphere. Good range of drinks and a popular garden.

We enjoyed the drinks, charcuterie appetizer, and each of our meals! We had the avocado toast, burger, fish and chips, and Mac and cheese! We were there on a Saturday night and it was packed so pretty noisy, but overall nice experience 😊

I’m pretty fussy about pub roasts but this one was really one of the best ones I’ve had in a long time. We did wait an hour for the food... but it was worth the wait and they gave us a free drink to make up for it which was a lovely touch. Waiters and waitresses friendly and the beer garden was lovely to sit in the sunshine. Will definitely come back :)

Fantastic Fuller’s pub right around the corner from station. A hidden gem with kind and welcoming staff going out of their way to make our experience perfect. The food was impeccable, even for Fuller’s usual standard. The cod cheeks and lamb kofta starters were delicious, followed by an amazing burger. Will definitely be back soon!