Melbourne’s most Irish pub is back open, and you can get Guinness twice as fast

Less than six months since Kensington’s Irish pub The Quiet Man shut with a St Patrick’s Day send-off, the Guinness is flowing again – but now through Australia’s only double-barrelled Guinness taps. Able to pour two pints simultaneously, the taps are a freshly installed centrepiece at the pub, which has reopened under new owners with a new name, look and restaurant.

Rechristened Auntie Annie’s Hotel, it’s the next chapter for the longstanding Racecourse Road boozer where co-owner James Gallagher spent eight years as a chef and venue manager. He met his business partner Zenita O’Neill there a decade ago, who was performing with her band.

“It was a home away from home,” says Gallagher, who first came to Melbourne from Ireland in 2003. “There was a core group who never left. You’d always know someone.”

“On race days [at nearby Flemington Racecourse], it’d be pummelled,” says O’Neill.

Despite surviving a plan to be demolished and turned into an apartment block in 2017, “over time, The Quiet Man got, well, quiet ... and a bit old and haggard,” says Gallagher.

Now part of his and O’Neill’s Zengal Hospitality Group – which includes Irish pub Jimmy O’Neill’s in St Kilda and cocktail bar Naughty Nancy’s in Prahran – much of the pub’s former glory has been restored, all in the name of a genuine Irish experience, not a theme park.

“We’re creating a pub for the Irish, but where everyone’s welcome.”

James Gallagher, co-owner

“A lot of [Irish pubs] are built to drag in locals and tourists,” says Gallagher. “We’re creating a pub for the Irish, but where everyone’s welcome.”

If it were possible to make the pub any more Irish, they’ve done it by adding Enbarr – a restaurant with a modern take on the food of Ireland – in The Quiet Man’s former front bar on the corner. The pub’s old dining room is now the main bar at Auntie Annie’s.

In the revamp, a stage has been added for local musicians. “A lot of live music venues are gone, so I wanted to bring that back,” says O’Neill. But some original features remain: the fireplace and the timber bar, now with a darker stain and those new Guinness taps.

“It used to be an ‘international’ beer; now it’s the beer,” says operations manager Emma Russell, who’s seen the group’s Guinness ordering increase by 200 per cent since 2017.

Being Irish-run, Auntie Annie’s prides itself on a well-poured pint. “There’s a science to it ... the small things add up,” says Russell. “Every pub’s getting a Guinness tap in, but not all of them know how to pour it properly, so there’s a lot of shit Guinness around.”

Naturally, big Irish energy extends to the food. The same trending spice bag that “kept Jimmy O’Neill’s alive in lockdown” has been transplanted to Auntie Annie’s bar menu. Crispy chicken, chips, capsicum and onion come with a secret spice mix and McDonnell’s curry sauce.

Ireland’s famous Kerrygold butter is key to the menu-spanning mash, which accompanies everything from beef and Guinness stew to “drunken” Jameson chicken breast. Chicken is marinated in mustard seeds and whisky for the nostalgic dish, which Gallagher also introduced at The Quiet Man. “That was one thing that all the Irish locals knew and liked,” he says.

There’s also a morning menu available from 10am to noon, headlined by a full Irish breakfast complete with black and white pudding.

Separating the pub from the restaurant is a foyer with a chandelier of 200 hand-hung crystals and a previously hidden staircase with horse-shaped cut-outs in its railings. It sets the scene for the 60-seat restaurant Enbarr, which leaves little sense of the time-worn front bar it replaced, now all marble tabletops, cushy booth seating and curvy light fixtures.

Led by Irish chefs Declan McGovern and Aidan Gallagher, the restaurant offers elevated versions of dishes you’d find in Ireland, with a focus on pickling and preserving. That could mean soda bread baked to their grandmother’s specifications; salmon gravlax presented with accoutrements supposed to mimic the colours of the Irish flag; or a “porridge” made from smoked barley paired with pumpkin, goat’s cheese and walnuts.

Irish whiskey will feature prominently, including in a chocolate-orange torte with hazelnut praline. There are also top-shelf bottles from County Cork distillery Redbreast, and most cocktails will champion Irish spirits.

It’s one of many distinguishing factors for the pub, in a pocket of the north-west soon to welcome several more refurbished watering holes, including the Kickon Group’s Doutta Galla Hotel just up Racecourse Road, and The Laurel Hotel not far away in Ascot Vale.

“It’s well-needed,” says O’Neill. “More attracts more, so I’m excited. We’ll all complement each other and bring in more people ... It’ll become a destination.”

The pub is now open; Enbarr restaurant opens on September 11.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily

271 Racecourse Road, Kensington, auntieannieshotel.com.au