With all the new restaurants — and their grand openings and grand closings in Center City with the speed and frequency of a revolving door — it’s nice to visit a place like McGillin’s Olde Ale House, 1310 Drury St., that has been around for quite a long time. The Irish pub has been dated to 1860, back when the Philadelphia Parking Authority was slapping tickets and boots on horses.
Wow, that is olde.
If you are looking for the newest, edgiest American fusion dishes, you probably haven’t wrapped your head around how a pub stays open for more than 150 years. How? It’s by offering classic pub fare and Irish comfort dishes designed to soak up copious amounts of beer in the gullets of happy sports barflies and the front line of downtown Philly’s happy-hour crowd. The most modern things on their menu are coconut-dipped fried shrimp ($10.99) and the hummus platter ($6.99). Did we mention there is plenty of booze on hand to temporarily pacify your vegan friends, who get huffy when there’s an eight-page menu and only three or four things on it they can eat?
But you really, really, really need to make a beeline to their wings ($7.49 for 10; $14.99 for 25; or $26.49 for 50), which are available in buffalo, Thai and BBQ style. The buffalo wings are perfect. No one is trying to reinvent the wing or invent new ways to test your tolerance for intense spiciness. They are just the perfect size, perfectly fried with the flawless, classic buffalo-wing flavor.
Sticking with classic pub fare is the way to go here. Oktoberfest might be over on the streets but the German sausage platter ($9.99) keeps the party going on your plate. Much like our livers, the knockwurst and bratwurst, marinated in beer, making them plump and tasty with onions and pickled cabbage.
You might be tempted to go with the shepherd’s pie ($9.99), but we were drawn to the mile-high meatloaf ($8.99). With the exception of the massive onion ring clinging to the top of the latter like a mountain goat on Matterhorn, the two dishes are homey and inviting stacks of meat, potatoes, gravy and veggies, and either one will leave you stuffed like a winter Sunday dinner.
McGillin’s has a formula that has stood the test of time and we can see why. We love the adventurousness of the newer Gayborhood restaurants but McGillin’s will probably outlive us all. Cheers!