The Black Horse Hotel Grassington

The pub is lovely and well presented, and the staff were pleasant and friendly. I booked Sunday lunch for my elderly mother, myself and one other person. The two lunches arrived lukewarm, and the beef was very tough. I raised it with the woman at the front of house, who said she’d let the kitchen know, but we heard nothing more and felt a bit brushed aside. Even a simple acknowledgement would have made us more likely to return. I hope our concerns were passed on. Otherwise, it’s well worth a visit.

We ordered three slow roast beef sandwiches, but the cold, rubbery, bendy meat was inedible and didn’t even look like beef. The falafel sandwich was dry, looked squashed, and came with horrid coleslaw. One of our two burgers, ‘the blue’, was OK, but the other was very underdone. The frozen chips were nasty and the salad was dull. Grassington was busy, but The Black Horse was empty. We wondered if that said something about the food, but ordered anyway. Big mistake. The staff seemed disinterested when we told them how bad it was. No wonder the place was empty.

Really good beer, fantastic food, and very friendly bar staff. This pub is excellent and well worth a visit.

The staff, restaurant and atmosphere are what keep me coming back to this hotel. I’ve stayed several times, and the restaurant food is superb. I especially recommend the garlic mushroom starter, it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. The location is great, though parking is a problem. There’s no dedicated parking, the nearby streets are too narrow, and spaces on the square are only available for a short time if you can find one. Getting around can also be challenging for disabled guests, with flights of steps outside and inside, and no ramps or lifts. That’s understandable in such an old historic building on a slope. The beds, though, are a real letdown. The mattresses are among the worst I’ve slept on in a hotel, so hard they feel like concrete slabs, with no give at all. I kept waking with back pain and felt wrecked in the morning from lack of sleep. Softer mattresses would make a huge difference.