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Shenanigans Irish Café, Southsea
Osborne Road, aka Southsea's Restaurant Alley, is a graveyard of well-intentioned restaurateurs.
Some stay the course, but others who have bitten the dust recently include a Greek and a Chinese restaurant. Others, I suspect, are teetering on the edge.
But, often with hope triumphing over experience, people still pile money into new openings despite the ruthless competition.
Enter Shenanigans, owners Iain Kirby and Louise Beeby spying a gap in the market for British food restaurants. Yup, multiculturalism was rampant along this stretch including Ethiopian, Lebanese and quasi-Italian, but no Brit nosh – until now.
They have identified the all day breakfast as a sure-fire winner. Why, the Turkish restaurant across the road has seen the writing on the Portsmouth wall and now offers English breakfasts too.
Eggs, bacon, Buckwell sausages, black pudding, Heinz beans, fried tomatoes and potatoes and toast is their take on the Irish Breakfast. The Scottish breakfast is the same bar a change of heart with the sausages – they're Lorne ones, square ones called after Scottish comedian Tommy Lorne.
Note the named beans and the local sausages, all for 5.95. There are bacon and Lorne sausage butties, egg on toast and beans on toast too.
But this is no greasy spoon caff. Shenanigans is very smart and stylish (ooh, those Tiffany lamps!) and jokey.
It has a long bar with two types of Guinness on tap and two large TV screens, the music thankfully low so you can have a conversation - part of the Irish DNA.
Service is laid-back charming, provided by Louise and her barman.
The very small menu ('our menu will grow as we do') also includes beef and Guinness pie with mash, peas and thick gravy (5.99) and an Irish stew with crusty bread (also 5.99). And that's about it, folks, except for proper cappuccinos, Irish coffee and hot whisky. No puds yet or poncy starters. This is a caff – yet not a caff.
To celebrate St Patrick's Day a tad early, I had the Irish stew. As everything is cooked to order, don't expect it to come winging your way once a microwave has pinged.
The stew was a truly excellent rendition of this staple, the large bowl stuffed to the gills with the essential potatoes and carrots, tender snippets of lamb found hiding in a rather sensational broth.
I don't know what Irish farming stock would have made of the parsley, but I loved it.
The bread was quality too and the butter was wrapped in Irish green.
I'll be back for that breakfast and the pie, judging by this standard of cooking. Shenanigans, may you beat the odds and have the luck of the Irish. My bill came to 8.84.
Carol is a chef, former restaurateur and editor of Savour, the Guild of Food Writers magazine.
Shenanigans Irish Caf, 57 Osborne Road, Southsea PO5 3LS
(023) 9229 3756
Open: 9.30am–10.30pm (11 pm Fri & Sat) and 9.30am–4pm Sun. Closed Mon.
Food: ****
Service: ****
Atmosphere: ****
Disabled access: Fine, but cafe is small
How to get there: Osborne Road is off Clarence Parade in Southsea. The restaurant is on the left going east. On-street parking.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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