The Scolt Head

this is my mates’ local, has fine drinks and food, the occasional live music, games on the bigscreen, nice clientele

Adorable little pub with an outside garden and a great house sauv blanc (served with a smile), dog-​friendly! Will totally be back.

This a friendly local pub. The staff are always very accommodating and the crowd is relaxed.
To the front of the pub is a beer garden which is excellent for sunshine drinking.

Super atmosphere here, turned up on a Saturday evening without a reservation but managed to get a table for 5. We had steak frites and a couple of bottles of wine and paid around £30 a head which was fine by me. Nice crowd (if a bit surprisingly hipster-​ish) and nice tunes.

Great pub, nice mixed bunch of people, friendly vibe and lovely outside area. Havent had food there yet but always looks good!

Great example of good east London pub. The crowd are a mixed bunch and the tunes playing reflect it! Good selection of beers on tap as well as standard spirit and wine selection. this place does not pretty its self up but that is half the appeal. Great for a few drinks on a Fri/​Sat night (or any night for that matter) — the atmosphere is always buzzing and you are bound to find some good banter. Be warned come those long summer afternoons you wont be able to get a seat. Well worth a visit — infact I may even see you there!

Love this local pub. Lots of outdoor seating but be prepared to breathe in a lot of cigarette smoke. The food is excellent. Pork chop and mash potatoes is my favourite. Excellent choice of crisps to go with your drinks. Lots of cool locals and all my girlfriends like going to look at the cute boys. It gets super crowded on the weekends but this is a proper London pub and has a great vibe.

I’ve never had a bad night at The Skolt Head. It gets a little crowded at the weekend but that just means you have to get there early to grab a good spot or failing that, wrap up warm and loiter in the garden all night!
I stumbled upon this pub while out running and endeavoured head back when I was slightly better presented. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember where it was but I managed to track it down eventually and it was worth the effort.
Really friendly bar staff, great food and plenty of tables means that you can take a group and still have a good time. Prices are pretty reasonable, especially for the area and the crowd always seems to be pretty easy going.
I’ve heard that they do a pub quiz and I’ll be heading there as soon as I finish swotting up!

I wish I could write a more comprehensive review of this place, but… I was inebriated. In fact I didn’t even know the name of this bar but it seemed so appealing so we went in.
The Scolt Head has a beer garden out front which looks fantastic for sunny drinking. Inside there are 3 big rooms, a restaurant area, a bar with a fireplace and a huge back room where they show the sports. We rolled up to order some wine from what appear to be a ‘Spy’ annual from the 90s. Confusing, cool? I can’t decide.
We sat in the back with large pictures of dogs staring at us. Pugs. Pugs on the wall. I dig it.

My husband wanted to watch the Manchester derby, but I would only go on the condition that we go to a place with a good food. I don’t like myself very much when I watch football, so it’s best that I have something to distract myself with. Through word of mouth we agreed on the Scolt Head.
In the back room they had a large projector so that you could get a great view no matter where you sat in the room. So that made my husband very happy.
They had duck confit on their roast menu that day, so that made me very happy!
Though service was a bit slow because it was very crowded, their servings were quite generous. Good food takes time, and it was worth the wait.

A little gem of a pub tucked away in De Beauvoir town. We went there on a Wednesday evening and the restaurant and pub was a hive of activity.
The diner portions are huge, so make sure your starving if you want to squeeze in a dessert!
The waitress was friendly, and the dining room has a slight country feel to it (you’d never believe you were only a mile away from Dalston)
For starters we had the asparagus and poached egg (£5) and lamb chops with beans and salad £12) Not cheap ‘pub food,’ but the quality of the food was above average, so i thought it was fairly priced, and the drink price was reasonable too.
Service was good, and didn’t feel rushed at all go leave after we’d eaten which was a nice touch.
A log fire in the corner, lots of old pictures around the walls, dim lights and candles all around gives the dining room some character as the sun sets.
Ive heard the Sunday roasts are very popular, so will probably return to see how good they really are.

Really nice little boozer between Islington & Dalston. It has a lovely little garden with seating out the front — this is surrounded by hedges — giving you some privacy from the cross roads it is on. They also have racks for locking up your bike too.
Drinks are the usual selection, food is pretty good & it’s a gastro grub menu.
Oh, they sell MASSIVE homemade sausage rolls & and Scotch eggs which usually sit on the bar, Good snack!
The crowd always seems to be a local middle class crowd; a bit Rarh, Rarh, Ya! but easy going and laid back.
Gets busy as the garden and pub is pretty small but it’s a nice place to spend an arvo in the sun having a few bevvies and a natter!

We were having quite a nice afternoon sitting in the smallish beer garden at the front of the Scolt Head — a sort of hybrid between a gastropub and a boozer — when the rain came.
Inside there are 3 sections, the back room — which had football on the big screen, the bar — had a few tables which were full, and a side room connected to the bar which was largely empty. Unfortunately we were told we couldn’t sit in there as they were setting it up for a busy evening of diners — it was 4pm and their idea of setting up was putting 4 napkins on each table with a knife and fork on each. Each table would take less than a minute to set up.
I hate pubs that prioritise non-​existent diners rather than try to accommodate the customers they already have. As such, I don’t think I’ll be back in a hurry.

DOES IT WELL…
Good pub. Good food. Friendly staff.
Manages to bridge being a local pub and a hip pre-​club destination venue.
Food is consistently of very high quality and, whilst not cheap, is well presented and a thoughtful varied menu.
The owner (Rosie) is a sound local who is engaged with the local community.

After drooling over the selection of pubs in a recent Unilocal Weekly about Sunday Roasts, I made a point of popping in here, early one Sunday evening for some tasty food.
As for roasts, well it didn’t really have the selection I was looking for. There was beef or lamb, no ‘lady’ meat as such — and by this I mean chicken, which happens to be my favourite roast meat. So I browsed the somewhat expensive menu and went for the salmon. It was delicious, yet small and I certainly was eyeing up their yummy looking dessert menu as I scraped my plate clean.
None of this is sounding positive but, I did like this pub. It had no pretension, just good (if expensive) food and happy, helpful staff. It’s got a wonderful outside area that is protected from the road by high hedges so it’ll be perfect for a summer pint!

Quite a posh looking pub on the corner, with a small outside area, where when I visited some punters were being entertained by a musician.
Pub didn’t have the feel I like, it may be a bit upmarket for me. I was served a decent pint of Trumans Runner by a stunning barmaid mind you.
Named after an offshore barrier Island near Norfolk.

I came here last weekend and had the best Sunday roast I’ve ever had in London. I’d only ever been to the Scolt Head at night time when it is always dead busy and crowded, so it was nice to see it in a quieter state. They managed to seat us (a table of 8) on the spot, which we were pretty surprised about, we must have got lucky. The bloody Marys in here are really good and the roasts, perfect. The service was a bit slow, but so were our hungover brains so we didn’t really care.
My new favourite lazy Sunday haunt.

Good boozer — Gastro pub food prices, but a good boozer, non the less.
Used over a number of years, mostly as a staging point for other escapades, but has also provided some quality evenings and afternoons, and occassionally when eating here, some quality food.
In the old days, it used to do regular parties and disco’s — quite good fun. I have been to friend’s birthday party here within the past year or so. It’s a good venue for such events.
Management seem serious about keeping the vibe good and the food quality.
It’s in a bit of a funny location, junction of 3 roads, but you feel safe on this island between the streams, so to speak.
Just be careful crossing said streams following a relaxing sunday lunch.

OK, i’m a bit biased as this pub is about 2 seconds from my house, but even if I was further away, i’d most likely make the trek over there to enjoy one of the best pubs i’ve been to in London (and i’ve been to a few).
The landlord Rosie (and sometimes Rich) is lovely and always stops to chat, and the clientele range from students to families and perennial De Beauvoir regulars.
Sunday afternoons often turn into a groggy hangout with a variety of boardgames, a range of vintage Penguin paperbacks and a pile of newspapers to pore over while you get stuck into a good ale and a substantial — and very good — Sunday roast.
However, you don’t have to settle into the deep leather sofas by the coal fire and consume a novel’s worth of wine. Instead there’s a separate room which often has live music, shows a lot of sport and also has a pooltable — so it’s possible to get emotional about the footie without fear of upsetting any comfortable regulars.
Quirky decoration adds to this pub’s charm — whether it’s the wine list made wtih fridge magnets or the array of steam engine dials that flank the front doors — but it’s no fashionista hangout — regulars still prop up the bar and the pub retains its old North London feel, and the odd lock-​in.

The Scolt Head is another pub that ticks all the right boxes in terms of what a pub should be. I’ve chatted to the Landlady Rosie who is absolutely lovely and extremely accommodating, and seems to really love her job. This is certainly reflected in the food and the décor. Downstairs is light and airy with wooden tables and chairs and there’s also a screen room with leather sofas and a pool table. Great for hanging out with a group or watching the game, and they also show films!
The food has a large Mediterranean influence but also British classics like Chicken and Leek pie and of course roast beef Sunday lunch — my personal favourite and only £12. Pints of real ale are still under £3 too! Amazing.