Pub Crawl – The Roy

The Roy
894 Queen Street East
416-465-3331

In his recent book A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change, and the Fate of the Irish Pub, American-born and Dublin-based author Bill Barich documents his travels through Ireland searching for what he considers to be the perfect Irish pub. His models for this dream destination include Pat Cohan's, the village pub in the 1952 film The Quiet Man, as well as the convivial community gathering places described in classic Irish prose and poetry.

Needless to say, he doesn't have a lot of luck. In much of Ireland, as everywhere, pubs are no longer the community hubs that they once where, and televisions, loud music and quiz nights have displaced friendly conversation as the main source of entertainment at many establishments.

The same can surely be said of many so-called "Irish" pubs here in North America. These exaggerated parodies of the romanticised (and mostly fictional) taverns so loved by Barich are generally soulless places, dubbed with names that suggest a heritage and history that they don't possess, and festooned with the obligatory reproductions of classic Guinness adverts and other faux-Gaelic decor.

With this in mind, it's easy to be cynical about The Roy, a self-described "traditional Irish Public House" opened by partners Mark Corbett and Andy Schnurr in Leslieville earlier this month. In a time where owners can buy pre-fab pubs from the Irish Pub Company, or follow an "Irish Pub Concept" business plan provided by Diageo - the corporate owner of Guinness - how much Irish authenticity can we really expect to find in a pub in Toronto, and a brand new one at that?

It's a question that Schnurr even asks himself. "What makes it Irish? The dark wood, the carpet, the wallpaper, the lighting? Really, to me an Irish pub is someplace you go to catch up with your neighbours or your co-workers after a day of work. It's more of a feeling, a comfortable place to sit and have a pint, and to talk and hear each other without screaming over loud music. That's what we wanted to create."

This vision was strongly informed by a trip that the pair took to Ireland and Northern Ireland several years ago, when they spent 11 days visiting 42 pubs all over the island. They'd long joked about opening a pub of their own, but this trip planted a seed that started to sprout a year and a half ago when restructuring at Corbett's company led to him being laid off.

"We started looking into it seriously and checked out some locations," Schnurr recalls. "We had a couple of close calls that didn't work out. And then Mark lost his dad back in September, so he spent some time with his family helping out, and pretty much the minute everything was dealt with, this place came up for lease." Corbett's father, who grew up near Belfast, was named Roy, as was another older friend of the pair who had also passed on, so the name of the new venture was chosen to memorialise them both.

It wasn't long after the renos began on the space that formerly housed Kubo Radio that a buzz started both in the neighbourhood and online. "We put construction signage in the windows which said what we were going to do with the place, and suddenly there was some talk on Chowhound, and places contacted us wanting to cover us. But we did no real advertising. I think people in the area have just been wanting a place like this."

Based on the number of people drinking and dining on the Wednesday evening that we visited, it appears that Schnurr is speaking the truth. He notes that it's the slowest night he's seen since they opened a week and a half before, but a good 2/3rds of the place is full, and on the day after St. Patrick's Day no less. Schnurr says, "We thought we'd have to depend on people we know and their friends to keep us busy, but we don't know most of the people who have been coming in. It's been great"

One thing that has likely been packing them in is the cheap and cheerful pub grub that comes out of the kitchen headed by Corbett's brother-in-law. At a time when it seems that every new watering hole has aspirations of being an upscale gastropub, it's refreshing to see a place with little pretence when it comes to the food. Comforting Irish and UK pub offerings like fish & chips, meat pies, bangers & mash, and a fantastic curry & chips make up the bulk of the menu, with a few North American bar food favourites like nachos, wings and burgers added for good measure. They also offer a Sunday brunch with Coronation Street on the telly (one of the few times that the otherwise unobtrusive screen in the corner of the dining area will be turned on), and a weekly roast dinner on Sunday evenings.

Schnurr also notes that aside from a couple of items that are brought in frozen, about 95% of the food being served is prepared from scratch using fresh ingredients. This was especially evident in the excellent Irish stew that was available on the night of our visit. Prepared the day before as a St. Paddy's special, the stew was rich and hearty, packed with big and tender chunks of lamb, and served with traditional Irish soda bread. Like all good stews, it benefited from being made the day before, and the leftovers were enough for a filling lunch the next day.

Of course, man does not live on stew (or chips, or pies...) alone, and The Roy has a prominent and well-stocked bar to provide liquid sustenance. There aren't a lot of surprises on the beer taps, but it's still a better selection than at many pubs: Guinness, of course, as well as mainstream domestics (Canadian, Blue Light, Keith's), popular imports (Kilkenny, Stella), and crowd-friendly craft brews (Creemore, Wellington), all priced at less than 6 bucks a pint, It's also nice to see Waupoos Cider from Prince Edward County has been given the nod over the more common import ciders. There's also a good selection of whiskies as well as the usual assortment of other spirits for those who like the harder stuff.

So, is The Roy an authentic Irish pub? Having never been to Ireland, we can't really answer that question. What we can say, though, is that The Roy offers a comfortable environment, friendly staff, tasty food and beer, and no blaring music or multiple televisions to distract from the conversation. Opinions on whether or not it's "authentic" will likely vary widely, but few could argue that it's a great addition to the Leslieville neighbourhood.

And as for Bill Barich and his quest for the perfect Irish pub, he might be interested to know that the shop in the Irish village of Cong that was temporarily converted into the fictional Pat Cohan's for the filming of The Quiet Man 57 years ago has been permanently renovated and opened last September as an exact replica of the pub from the film.

Which begs the question: Can a modern pub modelled after an "authentic" pub that never really existed be considered "authentic" itself? Sounds like a good topic to chat about the next time we're sitting at the bar at The Roy having a pint.