The Cow Dining Room (sitting above the buzzing and smoky Cow Saloon Bar) is charming in looks and style so it’s a shame that the service delivered by one of our waitresses just wasn’t up to par. The Cow is owned by Tom Conran and though I’m not sure you could really count this restaurant as coming under the Conran chain of restaurants if you go by price you might suspect it does. The food, simply prepared and presented, was high in quality but very expensive. A two and a half course meal consisting of a shared starter of smoked eel, potato salad and bacon with a dash of horseradish, mains of fish (halibut and snapper) and desserts (one of which was admittedly giant in size) and two juice drinks (that is, no alcohol!) cost nearly £70 – a bit much really for a gastropub. The food on the menu was varied despite not having the greatest number of selections (5-6 options each for starters, mains and desserts) with the most difficult thing for me being the interpreting of what exactly some of the fancy offerings were! In the end I think I went with safe and sure options.

Overall I was happy to have gone and despite paying what I thought was a hefty price for a pub I did walk away fairly full and satisfied. Final words of advice: If you go to the dining room upstairs definitely book ahead. It sits maybe upwards of 30 people and is usually always full with bookings so there is little, if no chance, of turning up on a whim and scoring a table. And this applies to any night. Of course you can always try your hand at squeezing on to a table in the cost bar downstairs which seemed quite the entertaining place to be.