(from November 09 Celtic Connection)”I”ve been in it all my life,” says Noel Hickey, manager of The Celtic Tavern in Littleton. “I was always very much into hospitality.” He says this while sitting at the Celtic”s long, black stone bar, talking about his days in the restaurant industry. And it”s true–he”s been in the business for a long, long time.  “I was managing a bar in the Aran Islands when I was sixteen years old,” he says. An Irishman”s love of drink will take him to many places, and Hickey”s led him to work at Wattey”s, a pub on the craggy, windswept islands off the western coast of Ireland. Since then, he”s spent many hours in bars. “I started drinking when I was four years old,” he says, laughing. Those little islands in Galway Bay where Hickey worked had a population of about 2,000 people. When he got to Denver, he became involved with the The Celtic Tavern downtown, a massive pub that could probably hold all those islanders comfortably. In March of 2008, Hickey helped open a new Celtic Tavern in Littleton, a smaller pub that seats 120 people.”We”re like a family here,” Hickey says of the smaller location. “I think that”s what I like the most about it.” While he talks, colored light filters into the tavern through a wall of stained glass panels above the backbar. “I had them all made,” he says, of the dozen or so large glass panels that give the bar area an intimate feel. Hickey is proud of his new pub, and proud of the food, too. “This is a very special beer batter,” he says, motioning to the fish and chips that arrive fresh from the kitchen. Three pieces of Atlantic cod are dipped in a batter spiked with Murphy”s Amber Ale, fried crisp and served with tavern fries, malt vinegar and tartar sauce ($12.75). The Galway Bay Seafood Casserole ($14.95) offers a few tastes of the ocean: Shrimp, scallops, crab, and white fish are baked in a dish with diced potatoes, topped with a crust of cracker crumbs and cheddar cheese. This entr”e is served with a side of the vegetable of the day, and ours is a medley of zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper. A lighter starter is the Rosettes of Smoked Salmon ($11.50), which could be a tasty dish to share. Slices of baguette are served with bite-sized curls of salmon, and both can be dipped into two large wedges of peppered cream cheese. All the great accompaniments to smoked salmon are included on the plate: hard boiled egg white and yolk, capers, and diced red onions.”We have a lot of regulars,” Hickey says, referring to these three popular dishes. “We”re very proud of our food.” For an upcoming change to his winter menu, Hickey plans to add a few unique items, including breaded bangers. For an interesting entr”e, all the traditional shepherd”s pie ingredients will be wrapped up in a roll of boiled cabbage leaves and topped with a meat gravy.As Hickey shows me around the place, makes a stop at a bundle of fishing gear”poles, tackle, waders. He mentions that it”s possible to borrow his gear, waddle down to the Platte, and spend the afternoon fishing. The river is only a few yards from his outdoor patio, which is a great place to enjoy a pint and a meal in the warm months.The private party room, called The Paddock, has a horse track ambience. This is due not only to Ireland”s love of horses and horse racing, but because the Celtic was built on the site of an old racetrack. The room is elegant and cozy, with a roaring fireplace and antique furniture.The center of the tavern is the monk”s tower. It”s a circular stone fortress, modeled after a similar tower built by monks in County Wicklow in the sixth century. The round room provides a few private areas to drink and dine.For the last three months, The Celtic has been hosting an Irish music session that”s been thriving. Hickey is happy with the turnout. “It”s certainly brought a good crowd in,” he says.Later, we retire to the bar, where Hickey surprises us. “This is the best whiskey I”ve ever had,” he says, pushing two glasses in front of me. He pours two shots of Bushmill”s 21-year-old whiskey. We drink them slowly. The whiskey is aged is Madeira casks, and has a light taste and a sweet finish. It”s a great way to end the day.Ever since those days on the Aran Islands, Hickey has seemed very comfortable in a bar, this time his own, where he truly enjoys making other people feel comfortable, too.The Celtic Tavern at Riverside Downs2620 W Belleview Ave Littleton, CO 80123-7187303- 795-0709 www.celtictavernatriversidedowns.com

(from October 09 Celtic Connection)”I”ve been drinking in this pub a month before it opened,” says Glen Eastwood, of Fado. “I know this pub very well.” He says this while sitting at the long, curvy wooden bar in one of Fado”s snug little drinking and dining spaces. He”s managed this Irish pub and restaurant for the last eighteen months, just one parking lot away from Coors Field in downtown Denver. It”s been twelve years since those opening days in January 1998. Eastwood has gone on to work at other Irish pubs in town like Casey”s and Darcy”s, but now he”s back at Fado, and running the place. Glen Eastwood is a man who”s found his home.  “There weren”t many Irish in town,” says Eastwood of the late nineties. That was a time before Casey”s, before Darcy”s, before just about all of Denver”s existing Irish pubs. He would visit Fado”s for the creature comforts of home”snacks and food from Ireland that just weren”t available anywhere else. For the homesick, it was a treat to re-experience a familiar taste. “Word got out pretty quick,” he says, when the new shipments of Irish stuff arrived: candy bars, sausages, bacon, and bread. And beer, too. Too many beers to recall, too many pints of Guinness over the years, right there at the bar in a pub Eastwood calls “one of Denver”s originals.” It certainly feels original, with old-time antiques and handcrafted storefronts, plucked from Ireland”s quaint towns and cities and reassembled”with Irish hands–here in America. There”s lots of warm wood and wistful memories. But Fado is also a chain of fourteen restaurants from Austin to Annapolis, and ours is almost as big as the ball field next door. That proximity to the dugouts sometimes threatens to turn the place into a crowded sports bar on game nights. Through it all, Fado”s new manager strives to maintain the pub”s Irishness, and he does, with his indomitable enthusiasm, and his willingness to adapt a centuries-old cuisine to modern tastes. “We”re not a baseball pub,” he maintains. “We’re an Irish pub that”s next to a baseball field.” “The menu held this place back for so long,” says Eastwood. “The food was not great. We”ve come a long way.” As he says this, three plates arrive at the bar, fresh from the kitchen. Everyone does fish and chips, and shepherd”s pie, he says. But these three inspired fusion appetizers are what will make Fado more accessible, but still Irish. The first is what he calls “Irish sushi.” What looks quite like a plate of sushi rolls is in fact a plate of five corned beef rolls topped with slivers of sliced cabbage. It doesn”t come across as yet another dish where coned beef finds itself unwittingly married to another culture or cuisine. It”s just another way to eat corned beef. In fact, it”s very Irish: the meat is wrapped in a tender skin of boxty, the Irish potato pancake, then cut into segments. The boxty is light and fluffy, prepared with a skilled hand. The whole dish is topped with a little bit of creamy horseradish sauce.The smoked salmon on the second plate sits atop small fried rounds of boxty. The diced fish is mixed with capers, red onion and lemon juice. It doesn”t last very long. Fado”s boxty becomes the foundation of the third appetizer Eastwood presents. In this one, called the flatbread, the boxty sits on a long, thin plate, and is topped with mozzarella, onion, tomatoes and a chiffonade of chopped fresh basil. The whole thing is then drizzled with a balsamic vinegar reduction and heated so the mozzarella melts and spills over the side of the bread. “It”s a different spin on Irish cuisine,” says Eastwood. “It”s what we do to step away from everyone else and differentiate ourselves.” He”s done a great job at re-envisioning the cuisine in a fresh, modern way that makes it, or elements of it, more accessible to a wider audience. “Previous teams had lost the focus on Irishness,” Eastwood says. “They got too dependent on the baseball crowds.” He says this in a year that saw the greatest turnout for the season”s baseball opener, but also the greatest numbers for Fado”s Saint Patrick”s Day festivities. In the end, how can you not feel Irish at Fado”s? The restaurant”s concept is brilliant, though most likely overlooked. The entire restaurant is one giant wheel of Irish history. When you enter, turn left. In a clockwise motion from the entrance, periods of Irish history unfold. The first of four period rooms is “The Brew,” dressed up like brewery-style Ireland. It”s a tiny little snug enclosed by old Irish pharmacy fa”ade and enough turf-scented atmosphere to make you want to stay all night.  Next is “the cottage,” a dining area with a crackling fireplace that evokes the hearthsides of Ireland”s thatched-roof days. It”s where the musicians meet for sessions on Monday nights. Stone walls and wooden tables complete the ambience. The Gaelic area is reminiscent of the era of druids, warriors and the Gaelic language. This was the age of metals, reflected in the metal bar in the room. Last on your journey around the pub is the Victorian room, which brings you up to the modern age. Modeled after a modern Dublin-style pub, this is the room where the bands play. The sleek feel of the room creates the feel of “an Irish pub from a different generation,” as Eastwood says. The room was renovated two years ago. “We spent a lot of money on that room to give people what they were looking for,” he says, “without losing the Irishness.” And the list of bands that have played there is impressive: KT Tunstall, Glen Hansard, Tim Burton, and young Irish rock band Seneca. “We have the ability to be all these things at once,” says Eastwood of Fado”s four different spaces. It”s as easy to think back on those old days in Ireland as it is for Eastwood to remember all those days he spent in this pub, way back when. But he”s here now, and while he”s present, he”ll keep making sure that Fado”s future is still rooted firmly in its past.

Sometimes, you just know you’re in the right place. And while Scotland might not be the place that comes to mind when thinking of great food, that country’s often-maligned culinary tradition has been re-born and dressed in some sleek new clothes at Argyll, a new Scottish restaurant and pub in Cherry Creek. For me, I knew I was in a good place when Robyn the bartender, pulled from her apron a Celtic cookbook, a well-worn little booklet of very traditional Scottish and Irish dishes that she’s actually made. She may have picked it up on one of her many trips to Ireland and Scotland. When your bartender cares that much about the food and culture, you know you’re on to something good. And you’d be right at Argyll, tucked into the space at Third and Clayton formerly occupied by The Squealing Pig. Where the Pig was gritty, cozy, dark, and felt like a rustic Irish pub, Argyll is bright, chic, and open, more reminiscent of a cute French bistro. Bottles of wine jam the shelves along the dining room wall. Another shelf prominently displays a little library of cookbooks–everything from classic French cuisine to more modern Celtic dishes–cementing the growing feeling that you’re in a place that really cares about its food.In fact, Argyll is one of Denver’s first “gastropubs,” a concept brought over from Britain, and referring to a drinking establishment that also serves hearty, well-made dishes. Owner Robert Thompson, who opened the place three months ago, says that his Argyll lies “between fine dining and a pub.” While Argyll puts a firm emphasis on the “gastro” part of the term, it doesn’t neglect the “pub” aspect. “We’re a place where you can get an elegant meal,” says Thompson, “and also knock down fifteen pints and try not to pee in the corner.”Thompson has tapped Sergio Romero to fill the Executive Chef position. Romero, who hails from hot and dry New Mexico, admits that Scottish cuisine has been a bit of a challenge for him. “It’s more out-of-the-box thinking than I’m accustomed to,” he says. But tasting his superb, carefully prepared dishes, it’s obvious that he’s accepted the challenge of one of the more difficult cuisines.For starters, his anchovy appetizer ($5) is quite easy to devour: a tiny school of little fish, bursting with briny ocean flavor. These aren’t the anchovies you get from a tiny can in the supermarket. Romero’s are breaded, fried, white anchovies, each one a mouthful. They’re served with a tiny lemon wedge and his homemade aioli for dipping. Understandably, he sells a lot of these at the bar.Every table gets a basket of the homemade crisps. Romero thinly slices Yukon Gold potatoes, crisps them in hot oil, and then covers them with a sprinkling of chopped chives, rosemary and thyme. The whole basket is then lightly drizzled with a malt vinegar gastrique (a reduced sauce of malt vinegar and sugar), then dusted with Celtic sea salt.The “Gastropub Caesar” ($9) salad is an innovative take on the classic. It’s a light mix of Romaine lettuces with a homemade dressing, topped with tiny ribbons of parmesan cheese that are infused with the earthy scent of Scottish peat moss.Eggs are the centerpiece of two distinct dishes, both delicious. One is the deviled-egg appetizer ($4). Romero adds a bit of anchovy to the yolk mixture, and places the quartered egg pieces on a bed of lettuce chiffonade. The eggs are topped with a tomato jam. Another dish is a staple: Scotch Eggs ($6). Argyll’s version is a perfectly soft-boiled egg, coated with sausage and deep-fried, served over a puddle of homemade horseradish aioli. So far, they’re selling a lot of both these dishes.The fish and chips ($13) in Romero’s kitchen start with fresh haddock (from the Northern Sea, never frozen). The filets are dipped in beer batter and fried, served with his golden-brown wedges of deep-fried potatoes, a side of the gastrique and an aioli tartar sauce.One of the unexpected offerings (remember: this is “modern Scottish”) is the rabbit lasagne ($17). Inside the soft folds of lasagne noodles are chunks of sage-infused Parmesan in a fluffy bﾎchamel sauce. Take a moment to smell the sage, if you can keep the cheese away from your hungry lips long enough. The tender chunks of rabbit are slowly braised in Romero’s kitchen, and are a joy to bite into. On the side is a tiny heart of Bibb lettuce, quickly grilled for a bit of color and flavor, then paired with an anchovy aioli, and perhaps a hint of cayenne pepper.Celtic sea salt bathes the shores of Scotland, and it’s also the brine mixture used to prepare the chicken for Argyll’s Celtic fried chicken ($16). The one-day soak in salty water keeps the chicken moist during frying, after its coating of buttermilk and flour. The result: crisp, flaky crust, tender white meat. You also get a little cast-iron crock on your plate, containing collared greens in a silky bﾎchamel sauce. It’s a Southern American dish, but in a gastropub it’s the quality that matters. And this dish is all crispy and heart-warming goodness.It’s hard to think about writing a review of a Scottish place and ignoring the booze. They’ve got that, too, at Argyll, including Tennant’s Scottish Lager (try finding that anywhere else in Denver), as well as more familiar brews like Tetley’s, Carlsberg, Murphy’s, and even the local Great Divide Titan IPA, which is used to make the batter for the fish and chips.Scotches, whiskeys, ports, and even a thoughtful wine list pack the drink menu, which also boasts nine special house cocktails. The Argyll Smokey Martini ($9), features Grey Goose vodka with a touch of Talisker, shaken and served up in a cocktail glass. It’s the Argyll combination: French vodka, Scotch flavor.”We’re a lot of French technique, with UK cooking,” Romero explains. He hits the local farmer’s market in Cherry Creek every Saturday to pick up fresh produce for his kitchen, striving to be a farm-to-table restaurant that utilizes local, organic ingredients. He also plans to start a rooftop garden next summer.Working with such esteemed culinary giants as Joseph Reed and James Beard, Romero has learned how to cook mainly from his years of experience. But he’s also done a lot of research. “You pick up on the fundamentals,” he says, planning to do just that during an upcoming trip to Scotland this fall.”There are so many amazing ingredients in Scotland,” says Thompson. “but they haven’t always prepared them in the right way.” Argyll is treating those ingredients, and others, with a great amount of care and respect. It’s the kind of place where you don’t leave anything on the plate–you’re eating all of it.And that’s when you know for sure, when it comes to food, that you’re in the right place.

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