Market Menu

Fillet of smoked haddock, chive mash, poached duck egg, dill beurre blanc.

Our Biadh kitchen now offers a great £6.9t Market menu. Enjoy two courses of great, fresh, Scottish food and add any sides or drinks to make your meal.

Menus will change weekly to take advantage of readily available, seasonal supplies but here’s an example for this week!

STARTERS
Terrine of rabbit, orange ginger chutney, beetroot syrup, amaranth.

Pave of sweet rock melon, Achiltibuie oak smoked salmon, prawn cocktail.

Cream of wild & cultivated mushrooms, tonic wine mascarpone.

MAINS
Pan-fried supreme of maize-fed chicken, marag dubh, oxtail and spinach risotto.

Fillet of smoked haddock, chive mash, poached duck egg, dill beurre blanc.

Marshall’s macaroni, three Scottish cheese sauce, garlic herb bread.

SIDES
£2.00 each

Garden vegetables

Biadh house salad

French fries

Mash potato

Onion rings

The MacSorley’s Whisky Club

 

MacSorley’s is pleased and proud to start the year as we intend to continue, oxter deep in good whisky!

The inaugural meeting of The MacSorleys Whisky Club took place on Wednesday 16th February 2011 in the Harris Tweed clad upper deck of the bar.

For the first meeting we offered  five drams of malt whisky, one from each of the main areas to taste for five pounds (£5.00!) and a wee taste of our Peacemaker New Spirit to round things off.

The good folk at The Good Spirits Company were on hand to supply the bottles and talk members through the basics of whisky tasting and the drams too.

So how does it work?

For a very reasonable joining fee you’ll get access to our whisky tastings every month, your own whisky club Glencairn tasting glass and a card for 10% off a selection of the bar’s malt whisky range.

You’ll also get tuition, discounts and other perks from our friends and partners every month too and we’ll use the membership money to splash out on some really special bottles along the way.

Sound good?

Whether your a novice taster or a distillery pro, come join us for a drink and the craic!

Slainte mhath!

http://www.facebook.com/macsorleyswhiskyclub

http://www.thegoodspiritsco.com/
http://www.whiskyglass.com/

(PS Stay tuned for some other very special tasting sessions with Tam at Tam’s Drams and some food pairing events from Sam Carswell’s kitchen. More soon!)

http://www.tamsdrams.com/

New Menu Is Here!

STARTERS

Biadh’s special ‘Whisky In The Jar!’ £6.50

Daily made Soup, crusty bread and whipped butter £4.25.

Carradale Bay oysters: £1.50 each 6 for £ 9.00 12 for £15.00

SLATES

Meat
Pressing of Old Spot ham hough, our own corned beef, chicken and pigeon roulade, home smoked Culzean Estate venison, pheasant salami £8.95

Fish
Cured North Sea herring, crab claws, oyster, home-cured salmon, king prawns, mussel brochette, Seagreens and avruga £9.95

Vegetarian
Garlic mushroom and mascarpone filo parcel, vegetable crudite, Kelly’s hoummos, gulls egg, vegetable terrine, beetroot, root crisps, crowdie and oatcakes £8.95

Pastry
Meringues, winter fruit tart, carrot cake, choux pastries with chocolate, sable, vanilla slice and coffee £8.95

Hebridean
Warm herring in oatmeal, Lewis croft potatoes, Brue Highland beef carpaccio, Ness marag dubh with langoustines, Spirit of Lewis cured sea trout, Abhainn Dearg cured venison £10.95

Served with homemade piccalilli, Arran mustard mayonnaise and crusty bread.

PLATES

Poached fillet of rose veal and slow braised veal tail, morels, quinoa, parsley root cream £14.50

Pave of turbot, snails, crushed peas and barley, silverskin onions, candied cauliflower puree, hazelnuts £13.75

Prime haddock fillet in crisp chip shop batter, chips, pickled onions, tartare sauce, tomato ketchup, wrapped in newspaper “Glesga style” £10.20

‘Partridge in a Pear Tree’: Partridge, pear, kale, parsnips and chocolate sauce, partridge sausage roll £13.50

Steak pie: Slow-braised shin of beef, mashed potato, root vegetables, topped with saffron glazed puff pastry £9.25

Pan-seared loin of venison, salsify, boulangere potatoes, venison lollypops, warm shallot vinaigrette £13.75

Rabbit and bacon pie, squash, broad beans, frogs legs, confit rabbit, smoked bacon jus £12.95

Marshall’s macaroni cheese: Glasgow’s favourite pasta dish, Dunlop cheddar cheese sauce, herb bread, fries £8.25

Braised Buchleuch beef jowl, fillet, crisp tongue, horseradish creamed potatoes, golden raisin and caper carrots £14.50

Stovies: Classic West of Scotland stovies with the addition of marag dubh from Croft Stores, Ness, Isle of Lewis £8.75

Haggis stuffed saddle of Reidschalmai Croft mutton, carmelised neeps, potato mousseline, chicken livers, roast leeks £13.50

Liver and onions: Pan-seared lambs liver, Dauphinoise potatoes, bacon and onion gravy £9.50

Please see our boards for ‘ Burger of the Week’. Choose from..

Venison and foie gras
Mutton with sage and apricots
Blue Elsdon pork with Bramley apple and crackling

+ vegetarian dishes and our daily changing desserts.

History

In 1899 Phillip MacSorley opened the doors of his ornate glass-fronted public house on the corner of Glasgow’s Midland and Jamaica Streets for the first time. With his name proudly on display, he set out to make his establishment one of the most luxurious in the city. Two years ago, almost 110 years on, I found myself doing likewise, the MacSorley’s name still above the door but much having changed.

While a period of restoration work was underway, I had time on my hands to do some digging on the bar’s past as a parallel project to the physical restoration. I was keen to know more about the history and what might be revealed. Hearteningly, both efforts produced a surprising revelation or two as the Hebridean connections of nearly half the pub’s history were revealed.

My curiosity was first piqued when details of Phillip MacSorley’s successor came to light. Records stated that a Malcolm MacIntyre from Stornoway, my own hometown, had taken over the bar in 1920. A few phone calls to The Stornoway Historical Society revealed that, although originally from Glasgow, Malcolm had lived and worked in the thriving harbour town and island capital and had been the proprietor of the Imperial Hotel on South Beach Street where An Lanntair gallery now stands. It was with Malcolm that the pub’s long association with the western Highlands and Islands began, an association that was seen to last for the next fifty years

Council records showed that MacIntyre’s successor in 1920 was a Mr Neil Gillies who hailed from Kensaleyre in Skye but here the trail went cold. So after contacting the West Highland Free Press, and with the help of their letters page, we reached out to a wider audience for answers. We did not have to wait long for results. After a series of missed phonecalls and messages, a handwritten letter from one of the Glasgow Skye, Morag Nall arrived and with it details on almost twenty years of MacSorley’s history. Mrs Nall, now in her eighties, informed me that her father had been manager of the bar just prior to the Second World War until the late 1950s and that MacSorley’s had been one of Glasgow’s original island watering holes rivalling even stalwarts like The Park Bar in the city’s west end.

Whether feeling the effects of a global recession or for other reasons, the bar was apparently faring markedly worse by the mid 1930s and owner Neil Gillies decided to headhunt one of the city’s best bar managers to help stem the problem’s tide. He found his man in the shape of Morag’s father, a fellow Sgitheanach by the name of Angus Campbell Young from Treaslane near Edinbane. Angus ran a bar on nearby High Street and agreed to undertake took a new role as the MacSorley’s manager around 1937. A team of islanders quickly formed around the new manager including Neil Ronaldson from Waternish as head barkeeper, cook Rachel McDonald from South Uist and behind the bar, on Fridays and Saturdays, John Ferguson from Skeabost and Ewen Ferguson from North Uist.

The outbreak of war in 1939 drew Highland and Islanders in droves to the city, pouring from the trains and onto Navy and Merchant ships on the nearby River Clyde. MacSorley’s Bar was just a stone’s throw away from the river, as well as the legendary Heilanman’s Umbrella or “The Bridge” as it was known, underneath Central Station. As is the way, the Gàidhealtachd soon found their own kith and kin and a home away from home at the island-owned and run hostelry. For better or worse the bar was a very busy place during the war years and gaelic resounded from the four walls as Glaswegian voices took a back seat.

Morag says “When the war came in 1939, of course, all the Highland boys came down and landed in MacSorley’s because of the gaelic, my father spoke gaelic, Neil Ronaldson too, and that was a big attraction. The bar was going like a fair.”

Behind the heavy swing doors on Jamaica Street, the men who would come to give so much during the conflict sought solace in each other’s company far from home and in the house whisky plied across the large mahogany bar.

Stories too emerged about staff squeezing in a game of shinty at Shieldhall during afternoon closing times. Or the office worker related to one of the senior MacSorley’s staff who, in a time of rationing, when a sign on the bar door declared Whisky On / Whisky Off depending on supply, managed to earn a five shilling pay rise by procuring a rare bottle of uisge beatha for her dram-thirsty boss when he requested.

There must have been a thousand stories like this during that period but in the passing of time, whether due to the passing of men and women or the passing of memory from one too many drams we will perhaps never know. But the island connection appears to have continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s. I spoke by phone to John MacKenzie a customer in those days from Glendale who recalled:

“ Even after the war there was more Gaelic spoken in MacSorley’s than English, everyone there was from the islands, packed in shoulder to shoulder. There was even herring and potatoes served by the kitchen every Saturday.”

But by the sixties times were a-changing and small independent pubs began to be taken over by large breweries. MacSorley’s went the way of Scottish brewery giant Tennents by 1958 before present day English firm Punch Taverns undertook ownership. Although some island staff remained latterly, eventually connections were lost and MacSorley’s became just another Glasgow boozer, a faded copy of its original, former glories.

So today, to reconnect with this new found heritage, decades on, the MacSorley’s team has set out to bring back a flavour of the islands both figuratively and literally. A fortuitous meeting brought about a collaboration with Harris Tweed Hebrides to work on new tweed interiors, the cloth being employed on bespoke seating, handrails and even menus. Connections were established with the Abhainn Dearg Distillery in Carnish who agreed to sell MacSorley’s a cask of the first legal spirit from the Isle of Lewis in 170 years and name it the Peacemaker batch in honour of Philip MacSorley’s own dram from a century before.

With a strong music and event policy already in place, the bar has begun to put on gigs with young upcoming artists and musicians from the Highlands. The food operation has also taken its lead from its Hebridean heritage calling itself Biadh and establishing an award winning menu of traditional Scottish dishes with a contemporary twist under expereinced chef Sam Carswell. Here the island influence again comes to the fore with crofting produce, Stornoway marag, Uist shellfish and the traditional herring and potatoes making a welcome return to the menu. Even the acquired taste of Ness delicacy Guga made an appearance recently under the guidance of expert and author Donald S. Murray.

MacSorley’s is now quickly reestablishing its lost identity and the team behind it truly believes in the wealth of talent, creativity and product coming from the western Highlands and Islands today. All these decades on our aim remains to be what MacSorley always intended his bar to be, a warm and welcoming hostelry, a place to enjoy good drink, good food and good music and bring people from near and far to join us for a whisky and the craic.

Back

Hello again!

Apols for lack of posting, something we aim to remedy forthwith!

More soon…

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New Identity

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Here is the first version of our new Biadh logo.

Biadh (pronounced bee-uch) is the Scottish Gaelic for food and the name of our restaurant upstairs at MacSorley’s.

You’ll be seeing a lot more of this very soon but meantime repeat after us…

BEE – UCH!

Nettles

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One of our new summer starters is a Panna Cotta of stinging nettles with pickled mushrooms, radish, broad beans and beetroot.

Eating nettles is not as strange as it sounds, and there are many culinary precedents of cooking up nettles throughout the centuries. The leaves of the stinging nettle when young make a good potherb, and were at one time largely eaten, particularly when green vegetables were less abundant than they now are in our gardens.

In Scotland it was the practice to ‘force the nettles for early spring kail’ and there are many accounts of nettles being dressed like spinach and making excellent eating!

Mackerel

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Our first starter on the new summer menu is saffron orange soused mackerel, gooseberries, crisp bread wrap, Arran mustard & oxalis.

With its sparkling, silvery belly and iridescent blue-grey stripes, the mackerel is an eye-catching fish, almost showy. It’s bound to be the subject of enviously dismissive gossip amongst shoals of less flashy sardine and cod.

The mackerel isn’t a delicately flavoured fish and its richness doesn’t always lend itself well to a simple ‘lemon and herbs’ pairing. But given the right treatment it is a fantastically moist, flavoursome fish that makes an inexpensive and very healthy meal.

The mackerel has been a consistently popular fish throughout European history. The Romans used mackerel to make garum, a fermented fish sauce similar to those essential to Thai and Vietnamese cooking today.

The mackerel is an oceanic fish that swims in very large shoals. The variety Scomber scombrus is a common fish in North Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. Several other varieties are found in the Indo-Pacific and are an important food source in Thailand and the Phillippines.

Health experts recommend eating at least one serving of oily fish, such as mackerel, each week. Mackerel is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, and vitamin B12.

Look for mackerel with shiny bodies and bright eyes. They should be firm-feeling and rigid; fresh mackerel won’t droop if held horizontally by the head. The freshest specimens are likely to be found in good fishmongers or markets. After buying mackerel be sure to keep it cool until you get home.

Ask your fishmonger to gut the fish. At home, wash under cold running water and pat dry before cooking. Baking, grilling, barbecuing, or pan-frying are excellent cooking methods. To check if mackerel is cooked, slit the fish at the thickest part with a small knife: the flesh should appear just opaque but still moist.

Due to mackerel’s richness, cream or butter-based sauces are best avoided. A spicy treatment works well, as does matching with something sharp. Gooseberry or rhubarb sauces are traditional accompaniments, or try experimenting with citrus flavours such as ortanique or pomelo.

Summer’s here!

The new Summer menu is now available at Biadh.

On at are a feast of great Scottish produce all sourced within 50 miles of the kitchen and includes Lobster, Roe Deer, Hogget, Spoots, Sea Trout, Nettles and much more!

There are also some new additions to the Pub menu including Stovies and a Ruby Murray.

More soon!

Chewing The Fat With Sam

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Our chef Sam sat down with the 5pm.co.uk bloggers recently and answered some of their probing questions.

Click the link below if you’d like to lug in!

LINK