Raglan Road is a classy, if Disney-fied, new-old Irish saloon
Raglan Road is a classy, if Disney-fied, new-old Irish saloon.
Raglan Road, 170 East 14th Street, 816-994-9700. Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Price: $$-$$$
You don’t have to pore over musty history books or old newsreels to know that the squeaky-clean “Main Street USA” at Disneyland or Walt Disney World bears only scant resemblance to any real small-town thoroughfare from the 1900s. This Main Street is a nostalgic ideal of those days of soda parlors, notions counters and nickelodeons. There are no smoky saloons or bawdy houses near this Main Street. And why should there be? Fantasy is always much more alluring than actual history.
At Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida, there’s an Irish saloon that’s much more elegant and well-appointed than the typical neighborhood pub one might find in Dublin or Cork. But fantasy or not, Orlando’s Raglan Road is an authentic Irish bar, constructed — according to the company’s promotional materials — from real Irish antiques, including four 130-year-old bars. The company put that same attention to detail into its second location in Kansas City’s Power & Light District, though the Orlando property is larger and has a somewhat more elaborate menu.
Both menus were created by noted chef Kevin Dundon, owner of a luxury hotel called the Dunbrody Country House on Ireland’s south coast. The fare here is more cosmopolitan than you might expect — I mean, it’s not all rustic bangers and mash, fish and chips, and shepherd’s pie. And that is as it should be: For all of its vintage décor, Raglan Road has less in common with an Irish saloon from 1901 — when there were no fewer than 130 Irish barkeeps in Kansas City, according to Pat O’Neill’s From the Bottom Up — than movie idol Colin Farrell has with the late Tom Pendergast.
That being said, it’s a good thing that the Power & Light District has an Irish bar. It would have been a serious historical slight if the Cordish Company had turned a blind eye to one of Kansas City’s most venerable entertainment traditions. A few blocks north of where the new Raglan Road sits, at 14th Street and Grand, is the spot where, in 1901, infamous booze hater Carrie Nation drew a crowd by ranting and raving in front of Mike Flynn’s bar before the police hauled her away in a “hooligan wagon.” Three of the city’s best-known city councilmen (including Tom Pendergast’s brother Jim) also owned Irish bars.
If you see an old battle ax who looks like Carrie Nation at Raglan Road (and one night, I did), she’s there to drink whisky, not condemn it. The main room of Raglan Road, with its tiled Corinthian columns, dark-wood bar and gilded ceiling, may be a better place to drink than eat. This space — loaded with hard surfaces — is incredibly noisy when it’s busy. Still, I prefer it to the more quiet, publike space right off the main entrance.
“Of course you like the big room,” said my friend Addison, who is mad for Raglan Road. “It’s where the action is. It’s lively and loud, and it looks like a movie set. Honey, it’s the ultimate in high Edwardian glamour. It’s Chesterton, Vita Sackville West and Brendan Behan.”
Before he took another sip from his martini, he reminded me that another famous Irish import, Oscar Wilde, delivered a speech on aesthetics to Kansas City audiences at the Coates Opera House in 1882 and was ridiculed for his flamboyant appearance.
“Of course,” Addison added, “if some poet in knee-breeches strutted into Raglan Road tonight, he might get the same reaction. It’s not a snooty crowd.”
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It’s not a snooty restaurant, either. I’ve eaten two lunches and two dinners at the joint, and on each occasion, my guests and I were informed by an attractive but lackadaisical “hostess” to find our own table. “It’s open seating,” she said. On one visit, the lass even tossed two menus at me on my way. My friend Lorraine was dumbfounded. “What exactly is she hired to do?”
God only knows. Raglan Road servers are all devilishly attractive, but a few have had uneven training. On two of my visits I had bright, funny and attentive servers. And then there was the young woman who was adorably bubbly and utterly clueless. At one point, she arrived with the “bread service,” slices of three different breads tucked into a napkin. “I think that one’s soda bread and that one,” she said, pointing to another, “is cheddar cheese. I mean, I think.”
“She thinks?” whispered Lorraine, a former server. “It never occurred to her to ask anyone?”
It didn’t matter. The food was good. The lunch menu isn’t extensive: soups, a few salads, sandwiches, stew, bangers and a few other things. But I’ve liked almost everything I’ve ordered, the most notable exception being a ghastly (and cold) potato-leek soup. The fish and chips are glorious, with fat hunks of haddock fried in a light, crunchy batter. A lobster club was excellent (and at $14 it had better be), though the warm goat-cheese salad was a disappointment. And even though it’s not something I’d order again, I enjoyed the banger combo — Guinness sausage and mashed potatoes.
My lunch with Lorraine was when I first tasted one of Raglan Road’s “special” desserts, the Dunbrody Kiss: chocolate mousse, covered with chocolate on a bed of corn flakes, according to the server.
I’m all about textures, you know? And a scoop of silky chocolate mousse over soggy cornflakes was one of the least sexy desserts I’d ever tasted. A kiss off, it was.
A few nights later, Addison couldn’t rave enough about his fat, sweet scallops, fried in a champagne batter and served on metal forks standing straight up thanks to holes bored into a wooden serving board. They can also be ordered pan-seared, but I thought the fried version was fantastic.
The fried chicken, on the other hand, was an oddity: three tiny bird pieces served in a wee toy deep-fryer basket. “They killed a parakeet!” Addison screamed, picking up a bird breast not much larger than a golf ball. “It’s not chicken. It’s a Galway squab.”
I was much happier with my meal, a surprisingly snazzy shepherd’s pie done up as a double-decker cylinder: creamy mashed spuds on top of a base of ground lamb and beef in a rich port-wine reduction.
I was wary of trying another dessert. Addison thought that night’s special, the “Dundon’s Delight” — which was described to us as “meringue over a bowl of fruit in a champagne sauce” — sounded delightful. But he was scandalized by the lump of rubbery “meringue” lolling over the chopped strawberries and fresh mint in the bowl. “This isn’t meringue,” he said. “It’s Silly Putty.”
I agreed. The sugary blob might once have been meringue, it had mellowed into something unrecognizable. The champagne sauce was nice, though.
“I still love this place,” Addison said as I paid the check. “It’s the Hollywood version of an old Irish saloon, and it gives the Power & Light District a lot of class.”
For fried chicken, though, you still go to Stroud’s.
