Cow E20

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
East London: Round the Olympic Park

Cow, London E20

Contemporary pub (Geronimo/Young’s)
4 Chestnut Plaza, Westfield Stratford City E20 1GL
T (020) 8291 8644 W www.geronimo-inns.co.uk/thecow f TheCowWestfield
Open 1200-2300 (2400 Thu-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 2100.
Cask beers 4 (usually Adnams Redemption, Sharp’s, Wells & Young’s), Other beers 3 keg, 4 bottles, Also Wines, some specialist spirits including Adnams
Food Enhanced pub grub/gastro menu, Outdoors Small terrace on square, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Sat DJ, functions.

Commerce has driven the development of London since the beginning, so it’s curiously appropriate that the first component of the enormous Olympic Park redevelopment to open to the public should be a correspondingly enormous shopping mall. Westfield Stratford City opened in September 2011 on formerly industrial land between Stratford’s domestic and international stations, with more than 370 retailers occupying over 175,000m² of floor area: the largest in London, the third largest in the UK in terms of retail space and the largest in the European Union in terms of size. You don’t have to be a shopaholic to appreciate its spectacular scale, with a grand staircase leading over the railways lines from the town centre, and some big public spaces, and it’s so environmentally friendly there’s even a special floor that generates electricity from the footsteps of shoppers. It’s already proved a great success, attracting over 1million visitors in its first week, and certainly transformed the local shopping experience, completely overshadowing the dowdy 1970s Stratford Centre opposite, with its 99p shops and fruit and veg stalls.

Beer connoisseurs adrift in this temple of retail will likely gravitate towards Tap East but there is an alternative, with a modest but reasonable beer selection and considerably more expansive accommodation. The Cow stands alongside several restaurants on Chestnut Plaza, a large square used for events and winter ice skating that during Games Time in 2012 will be on the pedestrian route from Stratford’s stations to the main eastern entrance of the Olympic Park. It’s arranged on three levels: a ground floor bar with plenty of vertical drinking space, a clubby and comfy mezzanine and a brighter upstairs restaurant-style area. Pleasingly, given the youth of the building, the decor is unashamedly, self-consciously fake, with sofas, tiles, bare bricks and quirky decorations with squirm-inducing dairy-themed puns. The toilets, inevitably, are labelled “Cowboys” and “Cowgirls”. But it seems to have worked, and when I visited on a busy midweek evening only a couple of months after opening, it already felt lived in.

The four handpumps each rotate different brands from the same brewer — Adnams, Redemption, Sharp’s (Cornish Coaster is favoured over the ubiquitous Doom Bar) and Wells & Young’s — with Bitburger, Erdinger and Staropramen on keg and two Camden Town beers plus Brooklyn Lager and Duvel in bottle. Typically for a Geronimo pub, food edges towards gastro and relatively high prices, with the likes of dry aged steak, haddock omelette, honey and lemon roast autumn vegetables and — of course — Cow Pie. Sandwiches, sharing boards and salad boxes widen the options. In terms of variety and rarity, the beer range might be the Stratford Centre next to Tap East’s Westfield, but beers are well served, it’s likely more partner and family friendly and there’s more of a chance of a comfy chair and a square meal after a hard day generating electricity.

National Rail Stratford, Stratford International Overground, Underground Stratford DLR Stratford, Stratford International Cycling Link to NCN1, LCN+ 16 155 156, Greenway, 2012 Games Walking and Cycling Routes Walking 2102 Games Epping Forest route, link to Capital Ring, Lee Valley Path