Black Horse Cafe

A taste of home, South African night was fantastic! Flavourful, atmospheric and all around inviting. Thank you for hosting us, compliments to the chef and team for such a wonderful evening, we will be back! :)

Came for Father’s Day lunch , roast was awful , chicken breast was rubbery and dry and the roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings were burnt. Feel like they have taken on more than they can cope with . Service wasn’t great either , for example the sugar was chucked across the table to us .

The photo speaks for itself. An elevated cafe experience, contemporary. Light/ bright inside, modern vibe. Welcomed by a host. Staff are really well turned out and clean. Prices as expected. Coffee fresh ground. Bathrooms were spotless (even with mood music). It's busy on the weekend, if you're planning a visit make a reservation. If not they are OK for walk ups, that's what we did for today.

Homemade, semi-rustic food that exceeded our expectations. It makes sense, seeing as the garden centre that envelopes the cafe is a very nice one. The bubble and squeak gets a special mention, as does the cheese scone. The pancakes were lacking in more ways than just the portion size, but there was still some charm in its sloppy presentation. It's run by a kind, accommodating team.

Always great breakfast here. The service is excellent, the food is freshly prepared and tastes delicious. We will be back.

A very nice place to eat. Good quality food, but slightly expensive. My only criticism was that my fried eggs were a bit snotty. I could have asked for them to be done again, but I didn't, so that is down to me. Will go again, and next time ask for my eggs to be flipped over.

Food, lovely. Service, less lovely. Atmosphere practically non-existent. Hot due to large doors being open to the heat from outside. Had to battle flies every 30 seconds. Long pauses between service. Got bored waiting to be offered dessert, so went to order it at the counter. Got bored waiting for the bill, so walked up to pay. We visit many, many gardencentre cafes and restaurants as we enjoy eating out and seeing new local offerings, but we won't be returning to this one. The Tin Roof cafeteria in Maldon and The Barn Cafe in Stanway are far superior.

Came here on a sunday for breakfast, the place was very busy. Would advise booking but I was lucky and was shown to a table with no reservation. I then sat looking at the menu for a good 10 minutes before anyone came. Not a big problem as I was in no rush. So a polite staff member came and took my drink order. I ordered an americano coffee. This came fairly quickly and was good. So now the wait began for them to come and take my food order. I was nearing the end of my coffee when I was finally asked if I would like to order food. So finally nearly an hour after i first walked in my food arrived. I was asked for choice of sauce and off they went. The breakfast was well presented and good quality produce used. However… although it was very tasty, it was not the hottest, the hash browns being the warmest thing on the cold plate. Sadly my sauce never arrived. After finishing my breakfast, I decided to go up and pay as did not feel like waiting any longer to ask for the bill. Summing up, The breakfast is very good and the service was also good, I guess they was just very busy. I never like to review negatively, tending to just state the facts. I would recommend this place though as its a very nice busy place and the quality of the food is good. Hope this review helps. I think the wait times was probably down to the shear amount of people there on a Sunday morning. The staff work hard and this is in no way a bad review of the place.