By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, Louisville’s Irish Rover famously holds a humongous party, featuring an oversize tent that covers most of the parking lot, live Irish music, and plenty of great Irish food and gallons of dark Irish beer.
It’s fun, I’m told. But I’ve never been. Big, noisy crowds guzzling draft beer outdoors on a brisk March day, even with the comfort of a tent loaded with toasty heaters, is just not my style.
But catching up with The Rover for lunch the day after St. Patrick’s, enjoying the warm and cozy Irish pub comfort of The Rover’s historic Frankfort Avenue building on a more normal day? Priceless. Continue reading Every day is St. Patrick’s Day at The Irish Rover →
Some people crave potato chips or chocolate. The other day I started craving Guinness stout. The more I thought about that dark, malty, bitter-chocolate beer with its creamy head so thick that you could float a farthing on it, the more I wanted a pint.
Thanks to Kentucky’s newly enlightened alcohol laws, a call to the Irish Rover put that right, and got us a delicious Irish dinner to enjoy with it too. Continue reading Carry out your Guinness, and dinner too, at Irish Rover →
I’ll never forget my first and only visit to Ireland. We spent a week or two driving around the country, learning wrong-side driving and stopping at every pub we could find to enjoy a pint of Guinness. Damn, it was hard to find traditional Irish music, though. Pub after pub after pub, the food and the mood were Irish, but the music was international rock. When I finally found a crew with a harp singing “Danny Boy” in a tiny pub in Killarney, it was jammed with American tourists, of course. Continue reading Irish Rover takes us to the Emerald Isle →
Nearly 20 years after its opening as a pioneer on the Frankfort Avenue restaurant row, the Irish Rover has settled in to its neighborhood setting so comfortably that it feels as if it’s been there as long as the 150-year-old brick building it inhabits. While it’s as authentically Irish as a pub in Limerick, maybe, or Killarney, the Rover makes a perfect fit in Clifton. With its dark but cozy bar and its sunny, lace-curtained dining rooms, it’s almost two pubs in one, both as Irish as can be.
Continue reading Irish Rover’s winter menu offers seasonal comfort →
The Irish Rover has been my comfy neighborhood pub for a long time now. We moved back to town from exile in New York City in 1994, not long after the Rover had opened its authentically Irish digs in a historic Crescent Hill building that began life more than 150 years ago as a saloon.
Continue reading ‘Crack-a-licious’ small plates at the Irish Rover →
The leaves on our big, old magnolia tree were rattling eerily, and the skies were a dismal gray. The icy wind cut through my parka as if it were a throwback baseball shirt.
The first day of winter may not arrive until Monday morning, but it already feels a lot like winter around here, and last week I had a powerful lust for comfort food in a cozy setting. I posted queries on the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum and my Facebook page and found lots of friends with similar hankerings. These foodie buddies quickly racked up a score of good ideas.
Continue reading Irish Rover’s hearty fare warms a winter night →
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