Sponsored by
The Horse & Jockey, Denmead
The Horse and Jockey is in an area where getting lost is easy thanks to a general lack of road signs.
Hipley is not really a place, more of a tithing (a measurement of land). It passed into other hands in 1248 but the name lingers.
I eventually found the pub via another pub, The Chairmakers' Arms.
'If you can find the Chairmakers, we're 500 yards down the road,' said the landlord when I called.
Well, loads of others find it without a problem as the car park was heaving one Thursday.
Riding crops, saddles and brasses form part of the sprawling pub's dcor.
Every nook and cranny is heaving with pottery, ceramics, pictures, books, brass pots and figurines. It's a no-frills, old-fashioned pub in sharp contrast to the Wetherspoons of our era.
The menus – there is a bar one and another for the restaurant – are as extensive as the knick-knacks.
These printed menus also join board dishes and five chefs are needed to keep the pace going on packed days when up to 300 diners could navigate those narrow lanes to track down Hipley's pub.
Hearty pub grub is the order of the day here. There are generous portions of steak and kidney pudding; beer-battered cod and chips; duck and plum sauce; cod with mushrooms and tarragon sauce; game cottage pie; ostrich; steaks; chicken with brie and wrapped in bacon with sun-dried tomatoes and, naturally, sausages and mash.
Start with chicken liver pate; homemade soup with bread or cheddar and leek pie and finish with homemade desserts of the bread and butter, apple crumble, treacle sponge and lemon ginger cheesecake type. Good, solid British nosh.
A hake fillet with cheese and leek sauce (10.95) came with enough hot, rather salty sauce to warm the innards of a family of four.
The hake was excellently cooked and the bacon and leeks offered further good layering. Mash was fine, vegetables a mix of soft and hard.
A lemon ginger cheesecake had a good base but not enough lemon or ginger, the topping vast and too creamy. Authentic ones are made with cream cheese and sour cream, not piled with just cream.
But, hey, at least it's a step in the right direction, made in the pub kitchen rather than in some industrial one elsewhere. And what a money-spinner at 4.95.
The Horse and Jockey is worth the detour, not only for the good pub dishes but also the sheer amount of effort and care put in by the remarkably hard-working couple who run it.
Hospitality is definitely the name of their game.
My bill came to 18.60 including a good glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Carol is a chef, former restaurateur and editor of Savour, the Guild of Food Writers magazine
The Horse & Jockey, Hipley, Denmead PO7 4QY
(023) 9263 2728
Open: Mon–Sat 11.30am-12pm. Food is served from noon-2.30pm and from 6pm to 9.30pm. Sundays: noon to 10.30pm
Food: ***
Service: ****
Atmosphere: ****
Disabled access: Okay.
How to get there: From the A3(M), take the Waterlooville exit. Head towards Denmead. In centre, bear left at the village green. At a mini roundabout, turn right and after one mile pass the Chairmaker's Arms on left. Horse and Jockey is 500yds on the right.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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