The Star by Hackney Downs, E5

A wedge shaped pub with a central also loosely wedge shaped bar, possibly of inter war vintage but now garishly painted to fit into some kind of fairground theme, indeed the bar even has a carousel horse as part of the bar fixtures. The bench seating around the periphery is vinyl clad, the floor thankfully a more traditional wooden effort. On the beer front there's just a single hand pump, this provided a pretty good quality Five Points Best, keg in the main was from local North London breweries, a plus point. All in all not a bad pub but could do with some work on the interior decor.

Opening around 1870 as The Three Sisters, the current name being applied in 2013. The eponymous mural to the corner splay has recently been painted over with the new name and a mural of a women to the west wall appears to depict Debbie Harry nuzzling a ferret (see photo). A recent website includes this place on its list of London’s 25 Most Boring Pubs. However, the pub’s website proclaims that this is the best pub in Hackney Downs and it’s hard to disagree given that it’s now the only pub facing Hackney Downs, the Downs Hotel having closed in 2007. The interior is well described below. It’s not that large and wedge shaped. The floor is bare boarded, the walls plain with little décor apart from some prints to the rear; the ceiling is clad in Anaglypta. There are drape curtains, but the bar is of a little more interest being prow fronted with scrolls, mainly painted red. It sports a carousel’s horse impaled by its candy twist pole. There’s quite a jazzy pot shelf with what look like painted glass inserts, the frontage also sports a periphery of red and white bulbs which look like a film star’s dressing table mirror; these provide most of the light combined with a couple of spherical crystal chandeliers. The overall impression is that this is a bit of a dive bar, just a couple of etched clerestory windows hint at glories past. Furniture is a bit utilitarian and music is a tad loud, in keeping with the dive bar theme, playing hits from the likes of Allen Toussaint, Kela Futi, Electric Peanut Butter Factory and the late great Gil Scott-Heron. There’s food, but it seems to revolve around the burger, examples on the pub’s website look like alien incarnations from the film ‘The Thing’. Unsurprisingly, customers are young Hackney types. Staff were efficient rather than friendly, presiding over a couple of chrome founts, then a pump with a reversed clip, Ubu’s Purity and Five Points Best at a reasonable £4.60 and very good it was too. Far from being boring, this is actually something different in the area and I’d have no problem popping in if passing, but the music level is a bit loud to make conversation easy.

Official site of The Star by Hackney Downs - www.starbyhackneydowns.co.uk

Official site of The Star by Hackney Downs - www.starbyhackneydowns.co.uk