The Pembury Tavern

Some of my friends and I regularly meet here, because it’s convenient for everyone. It’s a lovely large corner pubs and most of the beers on offer come from the Milton brewery. I find their mythological beers generally very drinkable, but didn’t really have a favourite until I dared try one of the stronger beers Saturn (7.2%) Now if I match my friends drink for drink I am destined for a headache the next morning! It’s so delicious that not having some is simply not an option.
Have eaten here several times over the last few years and can recommend their pizzas and also their pitta burgers.
They don’t seem to have had a beer festival for a little while? Previously I believe they had a couple a year.

Fantastic pub! I first encountered it because I was staying close by, but even though I’ve moved I still make an effort to come here whenever I can. Hands down the best fish and chips I’ve had in London so far and everything else on their menu looks great. Bonus points for the wonderful atmosphere!

A pub with no TVs! or loud music! I LOVE THAT.
Lots of seating, really good food, a large selection of beers & ciders, and billiards or board games available for those so inclined. Lots in our (very large) group had pizza and raved. I had pasta, which was pretty good also. Service was fast and friendly.
The place is a bit grim to look at (I think they’re going for «minimal» but it does look a bit ignored/​forgotten in parts instead) and the bathrooms were in major need of love, but I still really enjoyed an evening here.

Top pub. They have a great classic billiards table, hard to find nowadays. Pool table which gives free games if you look at it with a smile. Decent beer on tap, and some of our party had their pizza which I was told was excellent.

Nice friendly pub with plenty of space. Good selection of wines and beers. Various pub games — board games, pool and pub billiards. Dog friendly. We didn’t eat but the food looked lovely, Sunday roasts, pizza and bar food.

A gem of a local, real ale, good food and a pool table, what isn’t to love?! Fairly gentrification free, The Pembury Tavern is an old school boozer, it is quite quiet early evening and baby friendly during the day. The food is good — although the sunday roast is probably better swapped for one of their pizzas! Always a friendly face behind the bar and rarely a queue, it is worth a visit now!

It’s just a pub.
Which is what makes it so fucking good.
It’s not an old man’s boozer, or a screamingly loud hipster hellhole, or a moody Jamaican pub. There’s no loud music, there are places to sit and talk, a pool table (and, even better, a bar billiards table), good beer, alright cheap food, and a mix of different types of people.
This a surprisingly rare thing in London — something to be treasured.

While the harsh exterior and minimal interior may dissuade some, a pint of Milton Pegasus and one of their stonebaked pizzas will have you feeling cozy.
This real ale pub really comes to life on a Friday or Saturday night. With board games and a pool table it is a choice spot to spend a more relaxing night out with friends. The gin and tonics are inexpensive, the food is always impressive and the space is pretty big so finding a seat is never too hard.
The Pembury is a low-​key haven in ever-​trendy Hackney. I can’t recommend it enough. I’m more than happy to call this place my local.

I found the Pembury Tavern to be a surprising hit when I indulged in a quick beer ‘n pizza pitstop here.
Surprising, because from the outside the grey, blocky exterior might lead you to reasonably conclude that a rough sports bar filled with gruff-​faced locals awaits within. Even when stepping inside, the shabby student-​like interior could again make you expect mediocre food and service. But inquire about the beer available and order some food, and you’re likely to have your expectations surpassed quite comfortably.
It’s true that everything is a bit messy, in almost proud contrast to the carefully-​designed, trendy-​wallpapered pubs that are increasingly ubiquitous around London. Indeed, in this respect it reminds me of the Hole in the Wall pub in Waterloo. But what it loses in style (and possible blandness) it makes up for with a good range of ales and beers on draft from unusual small breweries. I tried the house wheat beer, which was excellent and the liquorice stout from Milton Brewery was certainly distinctive. There’s plenty of decent bottled stuff to be found in the fridges too. Food-​wise, I plumped for some garlic pizza bread, which was generously-​sized, well-​cooked (if perhaps a little charred around the edges) and good value for the £4.50 charged.
Service is quick, friendly, there’s no minimum spend on a card and they offer cash back. Definitely worth dropping by for those who like their sustenance good-​value, their beer unusual and their atmosphere unpurified.

This has been our local for a few months but getting back home from the station has been more tempting than popping in for a pint until now.
After always hearing good things we decided to have a look inside and grab a nice sunday roast while we were at it; for £9.50 the Pork is significantly cheaper than Beef or Lamb but was perfect. Excellent portion size and we didn’t have to wait long at all, the plate could have been a bit warmer on such a freezing march weekend but the massive yorkshire pud and apple sauce made up for it. I would have been satisfied with a weatherspoons roast and would have had more in my pocket at the end but you cant beat the feeling of being in a nice traditional local pub.
The experience wasn’t overwhelming until we decided to borrow a board game from the bar, travel ‘Guess Who’ was pretty fun but after a bit of discussion with the barman he mentioned they had a game not on the list — Pop Up Pirate. We did actually get bored pretty quick but it was nice to re-​live a bit of childhood with a rare cider.

A place to drink good beer, eat good food, and have good conversation. Not one of those pubs where just being there is a kind of mild mental torture which can only be eased by steady application of booze — here you can actual get to to the bar, order a drink, and hear your friends talking.
It is a big, open-​plan place with a sparse feel to it — bare wood tables and benches, light walls, lots of windows and a long bar. Not cosy, but its simplicity is a winner. I imagine in the ‘old days’ there were more boozers like this — no frills, no art deco windows and lampshades, but perfectly comfortable.
One true stand-​out feature for me is the presence of a bar billiards table. It’s a pretty rare game and hard to find. Luckily my dad was able to teach me the rules, and since I;ve been with various people and taught them. It can be played 4 player and is more chaotic and fun than pool. A definite draw! Although on busy weekend nights there are often people sitting in the way — we almost got in a scrap over this issue once, so best enjoyed earlier in the evening.
Lastly the food — it’s good! I’ve had the fish and chips, which was great, a modern, tasty and home-​cooked version of the original. I’ve also had pork belly with something or other, also very nice, and others I’ve been with have been very impressed by the chicken pie with saffron mash (maybe it was saffron sauce, I forget.) The pizzas are okay, a little below Pizza Express level in my opinion. Go for the other stuff.
Service is also pretty good, the staff are polite and some of them will have a friendly chat. Let’s face it, that’s pretty unusual in hipstery/​alternative spots in east London.

A great pub overall. The set-​up is intriguing. There’s a very large, mostly open space with all kinds of seating, mostly kitchen table style. So I sat with some strangers, but it’s really nice and communal, you know? The main bar is pretty long and features about sixteen taps. When I was there they had a festival going on, so one section of the room had two racks with ten gravity casks. The prices were all good. The food looked great: the folks sharing my table got a steak entrée as well as a pizza. In addition to having an extensive real ale selection they also had some nice bottles, the only one of which I can remember being Orval. There are also two pool or snooker tables. The bathrooms are a short walk into the basement and down a hall. I would say that the whole place does have a dormitory feel, but I kinda liked that. High ceilings, tons of lighting, dynamic and almost arbitrary wall hangings — dorm-​like. If this place wasn’t so far outside the city center I would go more often, but as it is I’ll probably just stop in during the festivals.

Excellent pub, brilliant beer. They only serve one beer which is Moravka. They also serve the best pub food in London. I recommend the burger, it’s fresh. their seafood is an absolute gastronomic delight

Went here for Sunday lunch yesterday and I wasn’t very impressed. Full of the usual East London crowd, I got the impression that it had developed a ‘too cool to serve you properly’ attitude and we ended up waiting ages and ages to order and when we did each course that came was wrong in some way. The wrong desserts came and when I tried to correct the waitress she brought the ticket over to me to try and prove me wrong! Surely the customer is always right? We also sent back two lots of burnt chips and waited about half an hour for a fresh batch and even then only one bowl came :(.
Our table was right by the pool table and a massive, drunk group of people were playing at the time so we were constantly being jostled and could hardly hear our conversation over their game.
I’m sure it is a decent place to go with a group of mates for a casual drink but I wouldn’t recommend this pub for a Sunday lunch as it gets way too busy and isn’t really set out for the staff to be able to do their job properly. Head down to London Fields instead!

The Pembury is the vortex in which all the area falls, or so I have been told by various people since moving to the area. My first impression when entering was that certainly here was where the cool hipster kids congregated, and god there were a lot of them, but on closer inspection the clientèle is mixed with older locals and cooler kids mixing comfortably, and you really do get the sense that is the local for a large part of the community in the area. I am not a big fan of barnlike pubs, but the large open space works reasonably well, and all the times I have been there I have felt like I could have a quiet intimate conversation. The beer selection is good; you can even get two of my favorite German beers (Augustiner and Schneider Weisse), but the sticker price make them a bit hard to swallow on a regular basis. The kitchen has had a recent overhaul and now exclusively gastro-​Italian. I haven’t eaten there enough to give a strong judgment, but the pizza I have had was very good. Well worth checking out — especially if you live locally.

I just don’t understand how this place has got itself such good reviews. And more to the point, how is it a gastro pub?
I may have got things wrong, but don’t gastro pubs sell nice food? Pembury Tav sells pizzas. Decent looking pizzas, but nothing special.
Looks like a sixth form common room crossed with a church hall hire out room.
It looks sparse and kind of empty, but in an unfinished kind of way instead of a «designed» kind of way.
Friendly staff, middle of the road, young, almost hipster patrons and decent enough drinks were all well and fine, but I wouldn’t be fighting and running to go back there in a hurry. In fact if a friend was was like «Ellie, let’s go for an evening in the Pembury» I would screw up my face (like I just smelled poo) a bit and say «er??? Do we have to?».
Not the reaction of a fan. So there for I am not a fan of the Pembury.
Do like their billiard and pool table and range of games to play on though. I just don’t really want to play them in there!

Having just moved to the area, I am pretty sure this will become my local pub. It’s a great space, has a very welcoming atmosphere, lots of friendly and interesting folks, *really* good food, and a good selection of beers. Can’t wait for their pizza oven to be up and running.
Hey, they even serve «Augustiner», which is my favourite beer (albeit at a rather hefty price)!

I loved the atmosphere of this place, a bit like a country pub. People were having a drink, playing cards or playing billiards. They have a vast selection of beer so you are bound to find a brand that you have never tried before. I did not have anything to eat but, after reading the other reviews, a meal at The Pembury will be next on my list!

Hackney is where I work and I tend not to hang around the area to long after work, but if I was to this is the place where I would relax. This place seems quite at odds with the overall feel of Hackney and this quiet, spacious and conservatively decorated pub seems out of place.
The choice of ales on tap is astounding; I doubt you will find any bigger choice in the area. The food here is also of top quality and the menu range is not your usual pub affair, and those staples of the gastro pub menu are done with an extra flair.
I frequent this pub every now and then to enjoy their £5 lunch menu which is truly great value for money. My top choices are The Homemade Burger, which truly has a homemade look and feel to it plus the added bonus of it having a good flavour without being too greasy. The Sausage and Mash is also top notch, the sausages and big and meaty with wonderful flavour and are complemented by a rich, creamy and not at all lumpy mash with a divine onion gravy. Another mention has to go to the Omelette here, when you order an Omelette here that’s what you get, and a damn good size and complemented by some of the best pub chips I have had.
The lunch time menu here is truly as good as it gets. I have been to this place a countless number of times and I have never walked out not feeling full, but more importantly, I’ve never left unsatisfied.

Yep, elsieb66 is spot on about the beer and food. The barn like place has the air of a spit-​n-​sawdust joint, even though it is bright and clean. When I was there, they were serving duck fat fried chips. Not the most health conscious option, but something everyone has to try at least once in their life.
And. this pub is one of the last remaining Bar Billiards joints. Remember those? Not pool, bar billiards, there are always people ready to give you a game. I found out that the years in between my attempts to play (rather a lot) had not improved my game.