The London pub that's been attracting the A-list for 30 years

Times

27-07-2025

'From the age of 17 to when I opened the Cow in 1995, I had always loved the tradition and inclusivity of pubs,' Tom Conran says. 'I love London pubs — there was a pub on the platform of Sloane Square Tube station where you could have a pint and a cig and jump on your train home. I love country pubs, I love music pubs … Irish pubs, especially in Dublin. Bars in Belgium, Brittany …'
Yes, Conran has long been a fan of pubs, which is why, 30 years ago, he decided to create his idea of the perfect pub — and the Cow, in Notting Hill, west London, was born. But even back then in the mid-Nineties pubs were in crisis. 'Their decline was sad to see: they were closing down, falling down or bland, corporate and ruined,' he says.
However, Conran was already immersed in a food revival happening in west London. In 1990 he'd opened Tom's Deli, selling artisanal European ingredients and really good coffee on what was then a sad and seedy Westbourne Grove. He attended the École Varenne, the modernist French gastronomy school in Paris, and had worked in restaurants under game-changing British chefs such as Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum and 'the great' Alastair Little. Then there's Conran's mum, Caroline — who writes cookery books and translates French ones — and, of course, his father, Terence, the renowned designer, retailer, hotelier and restaurateur.
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The Cow opened not long after the first gastropubs, such as the Eagle and the Engineer in London, and was justly grouped with that gastronomical shift in pub culture. The Cow's food was good, sure. But in 30 years the menu has barely changed. It's still platters of shellfish, pints of prawns, crab with angel hair pasta, a daily pie, chicken Kiev and the pub's famous bouillabaisse-inspired fish stew. The Cow, though, was never just about the food, or the Guinness and interesting Belgian beers, or the wine list, or the womblike decor with menus written in fairground script on mirrors. No. The Cow is also about fun — which is why it is still going strong and still so loved by its regulars.
Thomas Flynn is a longtime regular who became Conran's business partner. His background was as a front-of-house man for the undisputed kings of late 20th and early 21st-century hospitality, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King. For a decade Flynn used to come into the Cow for a few pints in the afternoon — 'golden hour' as he calls it — after his high-octane 7am till 3pm shift at the Wolseley, where he'd make sure members of the creative establishment were seated and greeted correctly, and that Edward Enninful and Anna Wintour were placed an appropriate distance from each other. 'Back then the Cow kept me sane,' Flynn says. 'It's a sanctuary. I came for the same reason anyone else is a regular here — for the recognition, the comfort, the familiarity. It's why [David] Beckham likes it.' Even in an age of burgeoning sobriety and sensibleness 'it's still a proper drinkers' pub'.
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The mischief does sometimes get out of hand, however. During the pandemic a complaint led to licensing issues. Conran was, by all accounts (except his own), cavalier with authority and the pub was temporarily closed. At the 2021 licensing hearing their barrister was able to draw on thousands of letters of support from Cow devotees. Nevertheless, Flynn says, 'no more lock-ins. They're a nightmare to manage anyway.'
The Cow owes something to the complex relationship Tom had with his father. 'It's not that I didn't love him or I'm not proud of him, but we had a fractious relationship,' he says. 'Emotionally he was bombastic. Dad loved modernity, order, simplicity, practicality. So, by being into pubs, I was into everything Dad wasn't: craft, tradition, conviviality, the Village Green Preservation Society.'
Terence had a seismic influence on British culture in the 20th century. So too did Conran's big brothers, Sebastian and Jasper. Members of the Clash were frequent guests at the family home in central London, so in 1995, when the Cow was about to open, Conran asked the band's bassist, Paul Simonon, to paint a mural in the bar. Simonon turned him down. 'He probably thought I was the uncool kid of a famous person.' Instead Conran commissioned the illustrator Paul Slater. 'Paul was still up a ladder painting the 'murial', as it's known, when we opened.'
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Conran also had no idea how to find anyone to run his perfect pub. 'The night before we opened I was still desperate for staff,' he recalls. 'I was telling a cab driver and he sent me two fellow Albanians.' One of them, Petro, is still there and has since become a 'captain', as managers are called. 'We've got 80 Albanians running everything now. Rita Ora [a Kosovan/Albanian refugee who grew up nearby] said to me, 'I'm sincerely grateful for everything you've done for my people.' '
The Cow's popularity rose quickly and it soon became a pub as renowned in west London as the French House is in Soho. Stella McCartney says: 'One of my biggest goals was to get a lock-in at the Cow. When I finally achieved it, I felt there was no other task left for me. It was one of my biggest ever personal achievements.'
Slater painted a second mural of the pub's most treasured regulars in 2016, including four of Conran's five daughters, his mother and McCartney. 'Stella is stellar. Very funny. Can talk to anyone. Enjoys the craic,' Conran says. 'She told me that being included in the 'murial' was a bigger compliment than any fashion award she ever received.' McCartney is not embarrassed to admit it's true. 'I couldn't believe it when I looked up and there I was, flying above the other regulars on a swan holding an apple. I still show my friends that with such pride. You decide if this makes me incredibly tragic or incredibly cool.'
When she made the pub her local, Conran says the faces appearing through its swing doors went from hip Brits to the international A-list. 'Dave Grohl [of Foo Fighters], who shucked oysters coz he's from Seattle, Nick Cave, Sinéad [O'Connor], Bono, Cameron Diaz, Liv Tyler, Stella's dad [Paul McCartney] and Ringo [Starr]. And Madonna.'
Yet the patronage of famous people is incidental to its allure. The odd influencer might turn up because of it, take a sip from a pint of Guinness for a picture and then leave, baffled by the stolid regulars lining the bar, but underneath it all the Cow is simply a great pub. Kids are barred. The daily regulars are there to drink and they include art dealers, a supercar mechanic and a mysterious figure in 'private security' .
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So will a younger, more sober generation continue to love the Cow? Can it keep its cool for another 30 years? Conran believes so. 'I see it as a legacy I can pass to my daughters. The two older ones have worked there: Iris is great front of house.'
Two years ago Petro posted a little video on the regulars' WhatsApp group of a just-turned-18 Cruz Beckham behind the bar. 'I told him, 'You're old enough now, come on — let me show you how to pour a proper Guinness,' ' Petro says. 'I thought he'd hand it to his dad but he necked the whole lot.'
The restaurateur Jeremy King's son, Jonah Hauer-King, started coming when he was studying at Cambridge, a decade ago. Now a successful film actor, Hauer-King, 30, is one of the new generation. 'I love the mix of the esteemed old regulars at the bar with this growing army of new followers,' he says. 'Ask the regulars about the Cow and there's always an impassioned response. Everyone has a story. Everyone feels personally connected to it.'