Two pubs close every day in this country. It sometimes feels like the Public House Group is trying to make up for the shortfall. After the established success of The Pelican (Notting Hill), The Bull (Charlbury), The Hero (Maida Vale) and The Hart (Marylebone), all of which were opened within a heady four years, the group has now unveiled The Horses, in Clerkenwell.

The name is a strong one. It's a play on the history of this beautiful, four-storey Victorian building on Ray Street, which was called The Coach & Horses for 228 years before a brief sojourn as simply ‘The Coach’. So now the Horses have their turn. But it might also put certain people in mind of the late Horses, the ultra-popular French-Californian spot in Los Angeles which became a high-watermark of clubby, sophisticate dining before it shut at the end of last year.

Somewhere between the two, perhaps, sits the essence of The Horses, which is also the lovely, intoxicating essence of the entire group. On the one hand, these are proper, traditional boozers — the sort which a highwayman, yomping in from the rain in search of shelter after an evening’s purloining, might well have recognised in 1802. But on the other, these are places that cook proper food brilliantly in highly attractive surroundings. (This tends to go for the clientele as much as the decor).

The Horses is no different to its siblings, except for all the little differences. There is a specific emphasis on seafood here. Upstairs on the first floor, a line of leather stools stand arced around a vast oyster bar, its brass trough filled with an ocean of crushed ice. The menu cascades from this opening sight, beginning in crab and lobster served on ice, with Carlingford, Lindisfarne and Jersey oysters on offer, their flavours ranging from the saline to sweet and meaty and finally to what our waiter describes as a sort of cucumber freshness. Then comes a smoked section, where a dollop of excellent, umami-cream cods roe is spread over thick-cut sourdough toast. And also an exceptionally meaty mackerel, with the addition of sharp and hot horseradish. We then had a hubbub of little, sweet clams and cockles served bobbing in a creamy, New England-y chowder, and some superb, bright tomatoes with goats curd — all fine examples of the group’s sourcing of very good, very simple ingredients.

And then the fish proper, which consists of proper fish, as you’d hope. John Dory, a meaty monkfish, a golden-hued Dover sole, a silky seabass. All accompanied by as many of the sauces as you want, each of which comes in perfect little pewter vessels — peppercorn, bearnaise, garlic butter, a salsa verde, and a velvety, completely decadent langoustine bisque.

And all written up with that same two-word brevity (“courgette, hazelnut”), which has become a stylistic, Haiku-like trademark of the Public House boys. James Gummer, who, with Phil Winser and Olivier van Themsche, owns the group, told the FT the other day how such verbal simplicity acts as a “constant reminder for the chefs to not overcomplicate. We’re trying to make sure that the food has the same kind of feeling as the space.”

Which is to say: simple, confident. Down to earth, unfilligreed, and yet hugely warm. Like its predecessors, The Horses is a swoon of Pantones which by themselves sound delicious, perhaps worthy of a place on the dessert menu. Chocolate notes and caramel walls; honeyed woods, butterscotch banquettes, toffee leather. But there are subtle nautical touches too, like stained-glass panels in glowing yellow which feel like they could come from below-deck in a galleon. Or the lamps made from old motorboat ventilator covers. Or best of all, the brass push plates on the doors, which are salvaged from an old ocean liner called the SS Amerikanis. The Seahorses?

On a recent Thursday during its soft launch, the place felt wonderfully overwhelmed — buoyant on a tide of after-work drinkers outside, who bobbed about quite happily on the vast pavements beneath the dusty, sail-like awnings. The Clerkenwell-Farringdon borderlands are spoiled by hearty, collegiate places like this. The office-workers don’t know how good they have it. There’s Sessions Arts Club, Bouchon Racine, Quality Chop House, and St. John, of course: the daddy. But this beautiful offering from the Public House Group is a more than welcome addition to the canon. The Horses! You’d bet everything on it.