The Old Red Cow

No way.
While they have a good selection of beers this place is really small and the bartenders seem to be a bit clueless. They have a whole wall of spirits but apparently no mixers so forget having a cocktail. Also while we were there some guy asked to borrow a hammer, went upstairs, and began hammering repeatedly which was incredibly loud. My husband said he was hammering the nail in the coffin and we left immediately.
Definitely will not be back.

i like the musich here. and decoration is really fine. it s a pub with a modern flair

I’ve come here a few times now and considering it’s not definitely in my neighbourhood for weekends, there must be a reason! Well: food is great, beer selection is always refreshing and the staff is always very polite. Keep up the good work!

What can I say.
After a week of food disappointments in London finally something to positively Unilocal about!
This place lived up to all the hype and more.
My starter was the chili squid — this was a great starter for what was about to come.
We had the Lamb Shoulder roast with Yorkshire Pudding roast veggies and a outstanding gravy. Just to top things of they also provided a side condiment of home made mint paste. Outstanding from the first to the very last bite.
A Sunday roast just like your grandmother use to make it!!!
When in London be sure to visit the guys and girls at this fine eating and drinking establishment — Old Red Cow.

Farringdon in general is an ace place to plan a day or night out — and the Old Red Cow is one of the best establishments in this neighborhood for a pint. The selection of local craft beer is truly impressive. If you’re an American craft beer aficionado, chances are you’ll be frustrated by London’s largely malt-​based offerings. The Old Red Cow goes beyond this and has a number of very hop-​heavy brews that were altogether unfamiliar to me — and exciting. The big negative is that the space here is too tiny for its popularity. There’s a small seating area when you enter the pub, and a more airy room and separate bar upstairs, but it’s probably not enough to accommodate the busy restaurant/​bar/​nightlife revelers in Farringdon. On the upside, I found the bartender to be an absolute patient delight with all of our questions. On Sundays they have a lovely roast menu, but get there early because they sell out quick!

I’ve been here for a beer on a few occasions, and finally got around to trying the food yesterday. Firstly the beer — this is one of the best selections in the area with loads of locally brewed craft beer from breweries like Beavertown, Kernel and Fourpure on with several on keg and a few more from the cask. They also usually have some good quality cider like Orchard Pig.
I had heard they did a good burger, and finally got around to try it yesterday. It’s a bone marrow burger, and I asked it to be cooked as little as they were allowed. It came out perfectly medium rare. It was a very tasty burger, although a little pricy at £13 plain or £15 with bacon and cheese. Having said that it did come with chips, that were probably some of the best chips I’ve had in London — crispy and coated in nice big bits of salt and a bit of rosemary.
I was left very satisfied. It’s probably one of the best pub burgers I’ve had in London. The only minor issue with this place is that it’s tiny, and so difficult to find space downstairs, and the restaurant upstairs is often booked out. They do have a small space outside for standing in the summer.
Overall, probably my favourite pub in the Farringdon area at the moment.

Swung by on a random Sunday with a friend who was visiting from out of town. Was a little sad that the kitchen had closed so early (we were there at 6pm!), but decided to continue on our liquid diets and stuck to beer, beer and more beer. Now if you’re looking for good beer, this place is great! Wide range to choose from and the bar staff were helpful in selecting what to drink.
Pretty small place — but that’s no surprise being in London. I’m not normally in this area so won’t be popping in too often, but when I am I’ll probably stop by.

Sweetie and I came here for a Sunday roast on a London visit. We didn’t have a booking and got there about 12:15. We got the next to last beef. (Our recommendation: if you want beef for Sunday roast, book! if you want to arrive any later than just after noon, book!). Sweetie was pleased with the beer selection, which is varied and interesting. We shared the Sunday roast for two, which is a thick cut bone in maybe-​rib-​eye (there were some extra bones in there, and I am not a butcher, so I am not sure) and comes with a charcouterie starter, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, cauliflower cheese, runner beans, and the hands down best gravy either of us has ever had. Really lovely lunch.

I absolutely loved this pub. We had a horrible experience at Ye Olde Cheshire pub right before ending up here. Talk about night and day. Food was great, good beers, amazing service. Highly recommend!

From the US. We stayed in the neighborhood and this became our local. Loved the atmosphere and the selection. Old Engine Oil became a personal favorite. Great place, younger crowd, cool vibe.

The good news:
–Lots of different beers, many of which are on tap.
–Popular place, good vibe.
–Good food.
–Really nice toilets.
The bad news:
–Small.
–Standing room outside under a covered walkway, however, no heaters:(
–Hard to get to the bar to order a beer due to it being at max capacity.
Made the mistake of heading to the Old Red Cow at 6pm on a Thursday with a large group (6 – 7). We had no chance of getting a table much less standing inside so we took up residency outside under the covered walkway. It wasn’t too bad but after standing in said covered walkway for 3 hours, it got a little cold (at least it wasn’t raining!). The earliest opportunity we had to actually stand inside and not be separated was at 9:30pm when the bar started to clear out a little bit.
It was at that point when we ordered the meat/​cheese platter and it was delicious. Definitely recommend.
I really wanted to give 5 stars to the Old Red Cow but I had to deduct one star for the lack of heaters outside, the extremely small space, and the two-​day hangover the Old Red Cow caused. Watch out for that Pale Ale! It’ll sneak up on you. Consider yourself warned!

This pub is slightly smaller than a VW Camper van and whenever there are more than about 7 people in it, it feels crowded. However, as the 2^nd pub in the small Pubs of Distinction chain, it has an immense range of beers on tap… 20ish!!! And they are not ordinary beers either! If you can get a seat somewhere this is an OK place to stop for a quick pint or two, but basically it’s just too small. When it was first built hundreds of years ago you would only have been allowed to drink here if you were known to the landlord… It was a good approach.
I’ll come back again to see if I can score a seat upstairs, but really this place is too small to be as cool as it is.

The Old Red Cow combines great food, an excellent range of beer on tap and in bottles and service akin to the revered Powder Key Diplomacy.
The beer range is impressive, even if in London’s growing range of craft beerhouses, the quality is not up there with the very best. Think London Fields, Camden, Grain, Brooklyn and a few others. Certainly respectable, but I would argue not enough to consistently tantalise the tastebuds of a seasoned craft beer fan.
The service though is fantastic, taking a leaf from the book of Powder Keg Diplomacy: when I told the bar tenders I was in the mood for a dark beer, they immediately gave me samples of the three dark beers on tap for me to try. That kind of approach, entirely unprompted, is definitely the best way to ensure the customer is satisfied with their eventual purchase.
I also tried the food, a bone marrow-​infused burger with skinny fries. Plenty of London craft beerhouses now offer burgers alongside their beer (e.g. the Craft Beer Company, BrewDog), but the one I had at the Old Red Cow was definitely the best: soft, flavoursome, and not overcooked. In fact, I reckon it easily trumps the burgers at some of the chains who have started to embrace craft beer such as Byron and GBK. I’ve also heard that the Sunday roast is legendary — my girlfriend and I once turned up around 6pm, and were disappointed to find it had already gone.
One small downside is the lack of space on the ground floor. That may not entirely be fair considering the rather more spacious upstairs I understand they have, but things did feel a little cramped where we were.
Overall though, certainly worth dropping by for either the craft beer or the food. There aren’t many pubs in London that one can comfortably say that of.

For a beer drinker in London who can’t stand another pint of Heineken this is your place. Less than a ten minute walk from St. Paul’s and Moorgate its revolving selection of beers is a welcome change. The list includes imports from all over the world as well as a great selection of higher quality small batch British brews.
Its a great place to sit down with a quality beer and enjoy yourself. No oppressive music or groups of City traders doing Jaeger bombs. Just barstaff who know the difference between top and bottom fermentation and some great examples of both on tap.

Came for a drink here after our exams– and sad that I only discovered in on the last day of college!
This is a brill little pub with dozens of beer on tap and dozens more bottled options– the fridge is so full of a hodge podge variety of beer that I gave up choosing and just asked for something. Unfortunately they were out of strawberry and cherry beer, but I was assured it is proper belgium (how dare I ask!) and not the flavored crap you get in other places.
The guys behind the bar were super chilled and we broke out the left over of our picnic luncheon (uncouth I know) and they didn’t bat an eyelid.
They were busy scoffing their own luncheon of delicious looking and smelling burger and chips. Based on that assessment, I’d love to come back and try their food.

A very decent beer bar in the Smithfield area. I was surprised to stumble across this place as I have never heard it mentioned by anyone in London. The Old Red Cow has about four cask pumps and c. 12 keg taps. You’ll find stuff from the likes of BrewDog, Camden, Kernel, Harviestoun, etc. There is also a large bottle list, though most of the stuff on it is fairly pedestrian. The bar has two floors and the first floor is pretty small. I didn’t visit the second floor, but I gather they have music there sometimes. Bartender was very pleasant. Definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area.

As part of my Tour de Pubs de London with friends, we made a dinner (or supper, if you prefer to call it that) pit stop in the Old Red Cow. It was,
thankfully, not completely packed, so we were able to grab a table and camp out for a while. Notable notes:
Un: An upstairs and a downstairs and plenty of space to have small groups, large groups, couples, or a pint at the bar.
Deux: Live music upstairs! Good live music at that! Not at all deterring from the dining and drinking experience.
Trois: A full menu with a wide variety of foods. Not food that will blow your mind, but good pub food and generous servings.
Quatre: Free jukebox! Board games! Little details like this make a place memorable, nay, unforgettable, if one indulges.
Cinq: Wide variety of beers and ciders on tap, and a lovely blackboard for displaying them all.
Six: Good location, just round the corner from the Barbican stop for a quick ride home (given there aren’t tube diversions).
All in all, an enjoyable dinner location. I could easily see myself setting up a weekly board game night just to have a good place to tuck in and have some fun.

If I’d spent more time in here, managed to nab a table and got some food in me, I reckon this pub would sneak up to four stars. But I have a habit of comparing pubs in Farringdon, and this one isn’t nearly as good as some of it’s neighbours.
But it’s not bad, not bad it all. I liked my red wine (expensive as it was) and I’d be happy to come back again. I’m just not sure that it’s a destination pub. More a pub that you’ll pop in to if everywhere else around this side of town is a bit full.
It’s not a bad pub, it’s not a great pub. It’s a cosy little place though, and I’d be happy enough if I found myself here again. I just wouldn’t be the one who suggested it with the Fox & Anchor up the road.

This is one of the few bars I miss from Islington… The ORC has… wait for it.Jenga. JENGA. Now, I know most of you are like… Sarah, what are you on? it’s just a game from the 90s that no one plays anymore. Well, friends… you are wrong. Ever played a game of drunk Jenga? You have not lived. I personally think this could be a Unilocal event topic.
ORC actually has several different games to be played from the comfort of the couches on the bottom floor. Jukebox upstairs is indeed free, unless the bartenders have a hold of it and play techno all night.
The food is very very good, this past winter I had an amazing bread pudding. Highly recommended!!!

Free jukebox!
If you reallllly need more reasons to come here, I guess you can keep reading.
They do their food from locally-​sourced ingredients, and the munchies we ordered (and the sight of the mains that some other people ordered around us, cause you know, we’re nosy like that) were quite good. They’ve got games downstairs you can grab and play with your friends, though we did turn some heads when the Jenga tower came crashing down and echoed from the wooden table and floors (hey, that’s the point of Jenga!!). The people around us got used to it though and didn’t really seem to mind once they realized that we weren’t just breaking things. The bar itself has got great wooden details and cozy lighting, it’s a great place to meet up for drinks and did you read the bit about the free jukebox? It’s actually got some good music on it too!
The entrance is on Long Ln, but poke your head around the alleyway in back, maybe it’s just me, but it looks really quaint at night. An excellent neighborhood pub!