WELCOME to the eggstra-ordinary O’Shea’s Egg. With a little tinkering (sic) from its creator Robert Owen Brown the celebrated Manchester Egg has been given a Celtic twist to grace the menu of the relaunched bar.
This Manc institution on the corner of Princess Street and Whitworth Street was in need of a little TLC and a four-week refurb costing £200,000 has done the job. Big bonus is the new food menu devised by ROB.
The former Mark Addy chef has created a number of signature dishes for the venue, notably the savoury delight above, with a ham hock and cabbage mix wrapped around the egg, before being rolled in a combination of breadcrumbs and Tayto crisps.
Other Manc/Irish fusion plates created by Owen Brown (above) for O’Shea’s include a corned beef hash potato boxty – a traditional Irish pancake.
The new food offering, twinned with a collection of fine Irish whiskeys and exclusive Irish gins, marks a major repositioning of O”Shea’s. The smart but characterful new interior has been devised by Cheshire-based Inventive Design Associates and built by Singleton Smart, under instruction from Punch Taverns.
Alongside the best Guinness in the city, the whiskey selection is enticing. Drinkers will be able to sample Teeling single malt, Tyrconnell and Redbreast 15 year old, alongside more traditional Irish faves.
The gin menu consists of Exiles (the only gin in the world to be infused with shamrocks), Belfast gin Jawbox, Kerry-produced Dingle, the marvellously named Bertha’s Revenge Irish Milk from Cork and Drumshambo Gunpowder from Leitrim.
O’Shea’s first opened in 1994, with then Republic Of Ireland football manager Jack Charlton pouring the first pint of Guinness.Since then, an estimated TWO MILLION pints of Guinness have been served at the venue, which sits in a historic former warehouse building in the middle of what was once Manchester’s ‘Little Ireland’.
The venue has built a reputation around delivering live Irish music, welcoming performances from The Pogues, Bagatelle and Stockton’s Wing down the years, as well as local Irish Mancunian groups – and their dedication to music will continue. The VIP relaunch night was packed with good music and dancing (below). Guests included Manchester council leader Richard Leese and ex-Everton and Arsenal striker Kevin Campbell.
Owen Brown told ToM: “Manchester and Ireland have connections that run deep, in people, food and drink. It’s been a really satisfying experience to explore the flavours and ingredients we have in common and bring them to life in a menu. Now I can’t wait for people to try it.”
O’Shea’s Irish Bar, 80 Princess St, Manchester M1 6NF. 0161 236 3906. The new food menu is available from March 2.