The Cow — Restaurant in London

As somebody who has reviewed many an establishment in my time, I usually give ratings be it postive or negative based of how I felt at the time when at an establishment.

However, my very poor rating and review for The Cow comes some weeks after many reasons.

Being new to London I've been excited to try her numerous restaurants, canteens, bars, and market stalls to eat and drink everything humanly possible. So when 2 very close friends suggested a trip to the famous Cow in Notting hill, I jumped at the opportunity. I was told some of the best Guinness and chicken Kiev the city has to offer.

The first issue came after being seated upstairs of the Irish pub to find that it's a seafood restaurant (yes I understand you're just as confused as me), and they despite there being the one kitchen, it was somehow physically impossible to order the chicken Kiev because god forbid it travel up a flight of stairs? Now, I'm not in the restaurant business but I would have thought one kitchen making all the food would then be able to evenly distribute the the food across the establishment clearly not.

Dismayed at the inability of the Kiev to journey up the 12 steps, we decided on ordering seafood, as one does when at a seafood restaurant above an Irish pub in west London.

Being Australian I am well versed in the art of seafood, and safe to say just about everything we ordered was very sub par, ESPECIALLY Considering the prices.

After enjoying the company of my friends and partner (not the food), we paid our expensive bill and left a tip and parted ways. Feeling let down by the whole experience I decided we could strike the cow off the list of places to go back to. Simple, right? Scratch it from the memory for good, and get on with our lives. But alas, this cow had a few more kicks left in as we soon discovered.

At approximately 4am both my partner and i woke up in unison a raced each other for the toilet where we proceeded to be violently ill, watching each other expel our overpriced meal from the cow wasn't how we planned to spend Saturday morning and the next few days. We then spoke to our friends who had the exact same experience as us, very unpleasant and glued to the toilet. Food poisoning is something that occurs in life and guess what, it happens.

Our friend reached out to the Cow to let them know what happened, it wasn't a coincidence that 4 of us all got sick, that was the only place any of us had been in the previous 3 days. And despite the cows best efforts to avoid any from of blame, the fact of the matter is: we got food poisoned whilst eating at their restaurant. The communications with the cow were rude, as they absolvoed themselves of any blame, and refused to acknowledge our sickness as their fault and simple gave us the 'all the best'. No apology, no compensation, not even a free Guinness on your next visit.

I don't love to rip into small businesses, and I wouldn't have written this review if it wasn't for the abhorrent communications with the cows team afterwards. Shame on them all and I can only assume that if they treat their kitchen like they treat their customers, there will be many more of these reviews to come out of the woodwork. Do better cow, if you can stomach the bill you might struggle...

I met up with my girlfriend and two friends at The Cow on a Thursday night to eat kiev. I've had the kiev before upstairs and enjoyed it. However, this time I was told I wasn't allowed the kiev upstairs. After trying and failing a number of times to get the kiev, I was guided to the seafood. Apparently, it's all about the fish at The Cow upstairs now...

So, we relented and ordered oysters, crab pasta, fish of the day, mackerel, and the harissa chicken (as it was the closest thing to the kiev). The food we ate was unremarkable and overpriced, aside from the Guinness. As we left, we caught glimpses of kiev being enjoyed downstairs... Feeling quite happy to be away from the kiev chat that caused a lot of defensiveness from the staff, we said goodnight and went our separate ways.

I thought that was that, a disappointing and expensive evening, but it could have been worse. But that wasn't that... Weekend break in the countryside for me and my girlfriend, we splashed out. We had a good dinner on Friday and went to bed.

I'm going to speed up what happened next - a severe bout of food poisoning. The things you would expect plus the trimmings of being bedridden, fever, shivering, aching. It persisted for 5 days. Weekend completely ruined, money down the drain, and time wasted. We thought it was Friday night, until we received word from our two friends that they were suffering the exact same thing. The Cow was the only real explanation as it was the only place we'd all been and symptoms started at the same time.

I have huge respect for hospitality businesses and contacted The Cow, anticipating a sympathetic response and some degree of compensation. I was met with more of the kiev defensiveness and a form to fill out, which I did. A couple of days later, 3rd party findings determined that because no fecal specimens were available - there was no chance of catching those! - then there wasn't enough evidence to say The Cow was responsible.

So for The Cow management, that was case closed, which is why I'm sharing my unfortunate experience. My take is that the people of The Cow are not good folk, confirmed by other reviews. The Cow seems to think it's above this.

To me, The Cow has never been about fish, so just let people...

🚇Westbourne Park 🍺 £6.70 Guinness ❤️ Great grub, Great Guinness. . The Cow is located on a quiet backstreet in Westbourne Park. The nearest tube is Westbourne Park which is a five minute walk, Royal Oak tube is also close by. . This pub was built in 1858 as the Railway Tavern. In 1992 the pub was renamed The Cow, rumour has it the new name was the nickname of the previous landlady. The pub is owned by Tom Conran, the son of famed designer and restaurateur Sir Terence Conran. . The pub has essentially three areas. On the ground floor is the Saloon bar which has a dining area at the back and a drinking area at the front, upstairs is a cosy restaurant. The decor here has the feel of an Irish bar which is a little rough around the edges. There are some lovely touches here, the Guinness signs, the red leather topped stools, the standout feature is the vibrant mural up the side of the stairs. . The beer line up was good and had two cask ales available. This pub is famed for its Guinness so I thought I’d give it a try. My Guinness was great and lived up to the hype, it was a little pricey though. This pub is also famed for its seafood and British pub grub classics like sausage and mash with onion gravy. To accompany my pint I ordered a few oysters, a little squeeze of lemon and down the hatch, as fresh as you like. . I arrived just after midday on a Saturday back in May. There were a few other punters in, a group dining at the back plus a couple of solo imbibers. The atmosphere here was calm an relaxed with a soulful soundtrack playing in the background. The service was good, the chap who served me was pleasant and courteous. The Cow is a popular destination for celebs, don’t be surprised if you see Arsenal legend Ian Wright quaffing a Guinness or two. . @thecowlondon was an absolutely superb visit. I loved the ambience here, this pub was so easy to settle in to and such a relaxing place to have a pint. This is an Irish pub at heart with superb Guinness and top notch food. This is a must visit pub and one of my favourite pubs I’ve visited this year. . ℹ️ Info...