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Kat's Table - A Little Taste of The Ceili Cottage
By Kathleen Lee
Welcome to the east end and please, invite your friends. I finally got a taste of “The Ceili Cottage” this past weekend, the pub opened last year by the same folks (Patrick McMurray and family) who have successfully run Starfish on Adelaide for years. I would call this place a gastro-pub but those are my words not theirs. Quite simply they are serving a small menu of high quality food to be washed down with a fantastic selection of beer, wine and spirits in a unique atmosphere.
The cottage is hidden somewhat as it sits rather non-descript on Queen Street East next to the Beer Store at Leslie. I’m a life-long east ender (like the owners) and live just a few blocks away in the Beach and as a result of this I am happy to see the Queen East strip in transition—especially closer to my end. My fellow Beachers and I often complain about the lack of quality dining/half decent options available to us in the area (There are a few exceptions—very few) so when I heard this place arrived I was thankful.
I bellied up to the bar with some friends for a few drinks and some snacks last weekend to give it a whirl. We didn’t have a full meal but we did have more oysters then one should probably eat in one sitting (couldn't stop—so fresh, so good). Along with the home-made bread, the smoked salmon with pickled onions and pickled eggs for good measure. Seafood is only as good as its source, how fresh it is etc. The oysters were excellent and I have to say I was out with two east coasters who can be very tough critics when it comes to seafood since they grew up with the freshest you could get your hands on—they loved them.
The oysters arrive with fresh grated horseradish, lemons and a couple of different cocktail sauces. The salmon was also very good, very tender and delicious as we piled it on fresh bread with sour cream and lemon. We washed down our seafood with pints of Guinness, glasses of Ray’s Station Cabernet Sauvignon, Starfish Caesars and dirty martinis (the bar tender made me a most excellent dirty martini to start my evening - very hard to stick to just one but I did). The drink list is varied and relatively small but that is fine when it has quality selections. They have Cava by the glass and that is pretty much my summer patio drink of choice.
The cottage is also committed to doing their part for the environment and supporting local food etc. They don’t serve bottles of beer to reduce their footprint and during the growing season they plan to have an outdoor farmer’s market on Friday’s and Saturday’s. They also support local events and groups (like the Irish dance school behind them) and hold various events such as music sessions or oyster shucking lessons. The cottage is small but they seem to have lots of regulars and the atmosphere overall was great. Everyone was very friendly and chatty which is exactly what you want in a “local” spot.
I think that is what this place may just become - my new favourite “local”. My friends and I are already planning our next visit - into the dining room next time to experience more of the menu. Feel free to join us down in the east end, and like I said before....please...invite your friends, the more the merrier!
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