The Disco Pub That Refuses to Fade: The Horse & Groom, Shoreditch

By Rafi Mercer

New Listing

The Horse & Groom is one of Shoreditch’s longest-standing music sanctuaries — explore more in our London Music Venues guide.

Venue Name: The Horse & Groom
Address: 28 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3NZ, United Kingdom
Website: thehorseandgroom.net
Phone: +44 20 7729 4838
Spotify Profile: N/A

Step onto Curtain Road and the air feels thick with history. Warehouses turned to galleries, record shops, and creative agencies compete for attention. Yet at number 28 stands The Horse & Groom — a place that has seen Shoreditch shift from forgotten fringe to one of the capital’s nightlife centres, and still holds its ground.

It is not sleek or new, and that’s the point. The Horse & Groom has been called “the disco pub” for years, and the name has stuck because it wears its identity proudly. No matter how many high-concept bars or rooftop clubs appear around it, this building refuses to let go of its music-first spirit.

Inside, the space is compact but purposeful. Downstairs you find the bar, a warm room buzzing with anticipation. Drinks are poured quickly, efficiently, without pretence. But climb the stairs and the heart of the venue reveals itself: a floor given over entirely to the system, the decks, and the dance.

The sound is something to respect here. Over the years the team has invested heavily in upgrading the rig, moving from a modest pub set-up to a system that can hold its own against East London’s most serious clubs. The emphasis is still intimacy rather than scale — you won’t find walls of Funktion-One dominating the space — but the tuning is sharp. The room has been carefully balanced so vinyl can sing without distortion, disco basslines can move a floor without overpowering it, and house rhythms can pulse for hours without fatigue.

Programming remains the lifeblood of the Horse & Groom. It is one of the rare London pubs where DJs treat the decks with the same reverence as a dedicated club. Vinyl-only sets are common, selectors weaving together rare disco twelve-inches with deep house records, nudging the crowd from one groove into another. There is no light show or spectacle; just music, delivered clean and true.

Part of the venue’s charm lies in its dual identity. It is a pub in every sense — you can grab a pint, chat with friends, watch the ebb and flow of Shoreditch street life through the windows. But at the same time, it’s a listening room, where crate-diggers and dancers alike gather to hear music on a system that respects the record. The two layers coexist, like parallel histories running through the same bricks.

The building itself has stories. Before Shoreditch was fashionable, this was a boozer for locals and workers, a place of honest beer and football chatter. As the area transformed, the Horse & Groom didn’t abandon its past — it adapted, adding turntables and speakers, inviting DJs, becoming part of the new cultural landscape without losing its roots. There’s grit still in the walls, and that’s why people come back.

On a typical weekend night, the energy builds gradually. Early evening the room is a hum of conversation and clinking glasses. As selectors step in, the lights dip, the crowd leans toward the booth, and the floor becomes a living thing. By midnight, it is easy to forget you’re standing above a pub at all; it feels like a micro-club, dedicated to nothing but rhythm.

For many, the Horse & Groom offers something increasingly rare in London: authenticity. While so many venues are branded, polished, and engineered for Instagram, this space simply is. It provides the fundamentals — sound, records, drink, community — and trusts that to be enough. And for over a decade, it has been.

The location, too, keeps it relevant. Curtain Road has become a spine of East London nightlife, with listening rooms, jazz clubs, and cocktail bars branching off like ribs. To wander down this stretch is to move through a cross-section of the city’s sonic landscape. The Horse & Groom sits in the middle of that web, a reminder of how the area came to be what it is.

And then there is the dance floor moment, the reason people still file up those narrow stairs night after night. A needle drops, the system opens up, and suddenly the room is caught in collective release. You feel the wood beneath your feet vibrate, the air in your chest shift with bass, the smiles flicker across faces around you. That is what a listening bar, even in the guise of a pub, exists for.

In the constellation of London’s listening bars, The Horse & Groom is less polished than some, less ambitious than others, but perhaps more vital for it. It has history, patina, and honesty — and that cannot be engineered.

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.

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