The Running Horse, Littelton (From This is Hampshire)

The Running Horse, Littelton

11:44am Monday 5th June 2006 in Restaurant Reviews By Unknown

THE Running Horse is another of those rural pubs that saw the decline of its traditional market and so changed.

Few have done is as drastically.

I never visited the pub. But I can picture what was thrown out. The dart board, the pool table, the fraying carpet and the rough and ready mickey-taking atmosphere.

In has come a dcor and ambience that you may expect in a club like the Groucho in central London or perhaps in Oxford Street in Southampton.

Its leather chairs and wood flooring, a colonial-style ceiling fan and you look out of the window through wooden slats.

I'm not complaining. The owner's Labrador dog lollops around but dares not enter the eating area. He pleads with his eyes. The atmosphere is nice and mellow.

The food is good quality too although £38 for lunch is obviously not cheap. My bangers and mash in onion sauce was £8.95. My wife's brown trout, £10.95, although delicious.

I still cannot get my head around paying £4.50 and £5.90 for two glasses of wine even Rioja Valdemar, that the wine buffs would describe as mouth-wateringly spicy.

The service from two young blond eastern european ladies (there was a Polish car in the car park) was attentive and pleasant.

The traditionalists will not enjoy the changes. But the reality is that had the pub not changed it would have faced a tall order to have stave off the housing developers that have targeted many other country pubs.

• The Running Horse, 88 Main Road, Littelton, near Winchester. 01962 880218