Pepper Street Tavern, Crossharbour, E14

Just down the road from Coldwater Harbour DLR stop, this is a well established Antic pub set in an early 2000’s former bar, built to serve the new housing developments on this out-of-the-way part of the Isle of Dogs. The unusual name is apparently a reference to the pubs location – ‘Pepper St’ refers to Pepper Street whilst Ontiod is an acronym for ‘On the Isle of Dogs’ – who knew?! Passing through a small front garden seating area, you enter into a bare boarded room of a roughly rectangular shape with very minimal partitioning throughout, mainly along the left hand wall where the room is divided into notional sections, thanks to small protruding walls decorated with retro wallpaper. Two rows of seating run through the pub – standard tables and chairs through the centre and coffee tables and sofas along the left hand wall. The front section has a real lounge feel to it, thanks to walls decorated with the usual crazy mix of Antic oddities including a crockery collection, various umbrellas, old tennis rackets, dusty portraits and a book swap, whilst the mid section is a more open, airy space and the rear part feels more suited to diners. The servery appears midway down the right hand wall and has a nice dark wood panelled counter and traditional bar back, whilst on the opposite wall, patio doors lead out to a tremendous decked garden area directly overlooking the surrounding dock. Several TV screens were showing a muted football match (involving local favourites Millwall, not that anyone here was cheering for them) with a quiet selection of pop tunes playing in the background. Stairs lead up to a similarly shaped room, opened out with less furniture and a large pull-down screen showing the same football match to a small handful of punters. Doors here lead out to a nice terrace which has even better views across the dock, not that I could fully appreciate them in the pouring rain. Just the three ales were available at the bar – Volden Session, Titanic Plum Porter and Hammerton N7 (£5.10) – but that’s three more than you’ll find in the vast majority of pubs and bars on the Isle of Dogs these days. My pint of the N7 was pretty good and we stopped off for some food too, which was tasty enough, even if we did have to wait an eternity for it to arrive. This is a much needed ‘proper’ pub in an area almost entirely given over to identikit chain bars and food-led outlets. The place was doing a good trade on a cold, wet Sunday evening and must have a decent local following, making for a nice atmosphere and reasonable beer throughput. Definitely the best I’ve found in this part of the city and worth the short detour to check out.

Slightly off the beaten track for a Docklands pub, housed in a semi-modern building near the south end of Millwall Inner Dock. Run by Antic London, but rather less eclectic inside than most. Mostly plain wooden furniture but a couple of more lounge-like areas at either end of the bar. Limited decor apart from a few pictures and a rather random display of crockery above the kitchen serving hatch. Also has an upstairs room (not visited). However, if the weather's good, the place to be is outside on one of the wooden picnic benches. Three real ales on handpump: Volden Session Ale, Brighton Bier Factory South Coast IPA and Dark Star Hylder Blonde elderflower (£3.95).

This is now an Antic pub, so the ale situation has improved since the previous poster’s visit. They had on Adnam’s Topaz Gold (£3.30 a pint), Fuller’s Summer Ale and something called TSA Big Blond. I don’t think that having just three golden summer ales on is particularly good by Antic’s standards, and something a bit different from those three would have been welcome on a wet and cool august afternoon. But it’s undountedly an improvement on its previous incarnation. Being an Antic pub you can expect an eclectic mix of furnishings and decor, although this one is not as extreme as others that I’ve visited. The larger part of the room is populated entirely by sofas, cushions and low tables. The back of the room has a handful of standard wooden tables with small kindergarten style wooden chairs. I think that the novelty of having these uncomfortable chairs for adults to sit on has worn off by now, but maybe some people like them although I’ve yet to meet such a person. The decor consists of bookshelves, complete with books (logically I suppose) and other nick nacks, a few black and white photographs (a couple featuring bi-planes). There’s a bit of other stuff around, such as standard lamps and a birdcage (sans avian), but it’s all very restrained for an Antic pub. The tips jar on the bar counter is something you don’t often see in a pub, but at least I got my change in my hand instead of on a silver dish. Food is the usual Antic non-pub grub, but the menu did include a homemade burger, salad and chips for £9. For me the best feature of this pub is probably the outside seating overlooking Millwall Dock, although the upstairs room deserves a mention as it contains both a table football and pinball machine. As is usual with Antic pubs, they do real ale at acceptable prices, and I guess on another occasion they would have a more varied selection on. This is a decent enough place to stop off for a pint if you’re traversing the Isle of Dogs, and I would drop in again if passing, but it’s not a destination pub.