DELMAR — After nearly a year and a half in operation, the creative team at O’Slattery’s Irish Restaurant & Pub in Delmar has expanded their menu to include more seasonal offerings and items with a twist on the idea of traditional Irish fare.
They’ve also expanded their bar menu to include unique beers, such as the recently-returned Bridget’s Red Ale, brewed in collaboration with Chatham Brewery and named for co-owner Liam Slattery’s mother, and Lough Gill, a craft brew out of Co. Sligo in Ireland that has never been sold anywhere else in the U.S.
“Liam, Jackie [Slattery] and I really wanted to come up with something a bit different,” said Head Chef Drew Philipchick. “We wanted to keep the same foundation of traditional Irish cuisine, but to expand on that and offer some different things. For example, on our seasonal menu, we have fish tacos. So, you still have the traditional beer battered cod, but now we’re offering it in a different way. The tacos come with a nice pineapple chipotle aioli, which is a pretty big hit. We also have a pistachio-encrusted salmon.”
The salmon, which is topped with a Jameson honey dijon glaze, is Philipchick’s favorite. “It’s just phenomenal,” he said.
Cooking with libations from the bar is not uncommon for Philipchick, who uses Smithwick’s Ale in many of his soups and Harp Lager in the fish batter. “Cooking with alcohol is great,” he said. “It brings out a lot of flavor.”
“We have the four or five main Irish beers,” said Head Bartender Michael Mulhall. “But, we have a lot of craft stuff as well. We carry Hill Farmstead, which was voted the #1 brewery in the world last year. Every week we get something different in from them, a lot of IPAs. We have Grimm, which is from Brooklyn. They got voted top three in the country. They’re a gypsy brewery — they don’t actually have their own space, so they’ll rent out space and go in and make one batch of beer and then they’re out.”
The Grimm is currently his favorite. And, while Mulhall has traditionally been a Jameson man, he said that he would recommend guests try the Yellow Spot, a “legendary” Irish whiskey aged for 12 years.
They intend to evolve the menu with the changing of seasons, said Philipchick. “We just rolled out our summer menu and my plan is to take the bestsellers from the seasonal menu and incorporate that into our full-time menu, and then come out with a new seasonal menu in the fall.” He’s been looking into doing more local sourcing for the menu as well, and said that he was interested in sourcing certain items from farms in Clarksville.
“We really want to hit all the facets of what people want to eat,” Philipchick said.
In addition to an evolving menu, O’Slattery’s offers entertainment most nights of the week and enjoys taking part in community events. There are even plans set to throw seasonal outdoor festivals like the Fall Fest with Get Up Jack on Saturday, Sept. 9, halfway to St. Patrick’s Day.
“We closed down the parking lot and had beer trucks and live music all day,” said Liam Slattery. “We had local Cub Scouts come in to raise money for a trip; we had Irish dancers; we had a pet adoption through Steve Caporizzo, which was great because we had dogs that were adopted that day. It’s nice to be able to do those things because, in Ireland, pubs aren’t all about drinking — they’re more of a social thing.”