A la Colthard/The Black Horse Amberley
Yesterday I met an old friend from my travel journo days for lunch near his home in Petworth.
My friend acquired – and built up – a highly-successful internet “bucket shop” website which at its peak attracted 3 million hits monthly.
We meet every 3 months of so for lunch in a West Sussex hostelry.
Once it was Marylebone where we met, going to an expensive restaurant and inhaling the fumes of Oxford St en route.
Now it’s a delightful car journey though the Downs to the picturesque village of Amberley and the Black Horse pub.
The fare is wholesome, the service friendly, the reception warm.
I had a creamy chicken parfait liver and skate for afters so the cuisine is more imaginative and I have to say expensive (£45 for a dover sole but at least the waitress, in giving us this special, also told us the price).
My pal had a hearty soup and more traditional steak and ale pie.
I had two halves of the local firewater (Amberley Ale).
In these troubled times what could be pleasanter than a lunch in Sussex pub with an old mate?