Lunch with Your Bunch: The Cow, Seven Dials, Brighton

On Monday, I posted a couple of photos of The Cow and a ‘HIGHLY RECOMMENDED‘ comment on the Little Lewes Facebook page. It received a lot of views – and likes – and one reader has already eaten there with her kids. Since not everyone following the blog is on Facebook, I thought it worthy of a short share here.

That day, we met some mates and did what I suggested on Little Lewes in the ‘All Rain, No Pain Part 1’ post from a few days back – the Booth Museum and Dyke Road Playground.

Famished and feeling deserving of a treat (it was the first day of half term, after all), we walked to Seven Dials and found The Cow.

This is a craft beer pub with a part Americana/part Brit feel. There’s neon-lit signage, but there’s also a smidge of Farrow and Ball and tartan in places. I like the parquet wall and the huge tromp l’oeil one papered in black and white to look like a real bookcase.

The pub has space – a must – and is super accommodating. We retreated to the back and spread out, pushing tables together. There were high chairs, crayons and colouring-in print-outs (outlines of monsters for the kids to give whatever faces they fancied).

The staff were friendly, working around our different food/drink needs and returning to us often to see if we were OK.

The children’s menu is made up for £4 dishes of the fish-finger-and-chip variety, but it’s all made fresh. Nothing more annoying than paying for a pile of Birds Eye and McCain. The fish fingers and the chicken goujons were chunky and crispy, and not deep-fried to within an inch of disgusting.

My youngest had a ‘tasting plate‘ of what we call ‘bits and pieces’ – carrots, cheese, grapes, cut up apple, bread and hummus. It was generous and the ingredients were good quality.

For adults the menu is split into ‘bite size’ plates that priced between £2.95 and £5.95, and bigger mains. We all ate from the bite size – superfood salads all, with one coupled with some arancini, mine coupled with some chilli-fried squid. (Think I don’t know how middle class that sounds? Hang it, it was delicious).

The food was fresh and toothsome – decently sized to the point that none of us went down the Mini Milk road with the kids afterwards.

We left The Cow feeling not stressed. Six children ranging in ages between six months and six years, sat at a table with three mothers, for one hour. Somehow, it worked, in no small part thanks to The Cow. So often you go into these places en masse, and there’s eye-rolling – from staff and other punters. Not here.

Like I said: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. (And also I would fully choose this for a night of adult drunkenness. Craft beer? YES PLEASE. It is most definitely not ‘aimed’ at kids and families – but it does a good job adapting to them in the day time.)

Address: 95/97 Dyke Road, Seven Dials, Brighton
Tel no.: 01273 772 370
Website: thecowbrighton.co.uk

Disclosure: I did not accept – nor was I offered – any freebies or money for this post. We stumbled across The Cow and I felt it was value to share it with Little Lewes’s readers.