101 star sars (#13): The White Horse, SW6

Stuck, since the days of Peter York and Ann Barr's bestselling Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, with the soubriquet "The Sloany Pony", this excellent pub is tucked into the north corner of Parson's Green, a patch of greensward that's a communal garden to the well-heeled twentysomethings of New Kings Road. You can hear them chattering, quaffing and braying every night of the week in midsummer. But don't let that put you off. This big, handsome, well-maintained Victorian pub is very welcoming, whether you're sinking into its button-backed leather sofas, inspecting the original prints on the wall or trying its excellent, home-made food. It's huge and stately (it used to be a coaching inn) with high ceilings and flagstone floors, a mahogany bar, real fires in winter, and outside barbecues in summer when you can drift on to the Green. You should come here for the beer as well as the company. They have a bewildering range of real ales, plus 45 imported bottled beers and at least a dozen single-malt whiskys. If there's a better pub to stroll to in search of a Sunday lunchtime pint, I've yet to find it. The Gents and Ladies loos are denoted as "Pistols" and "Dolls" respectively – not a reference to children's playthings but to Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 2, in which Pistol is a friend of Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet a whore in the Boar's Head Tavern. The White Horse is that kind of bar.

1-3 Parson's Green, London SW6 (020-7736 2115)

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