Wild Irish Ride

The aforementioned chicken comes with champ, the Irish version of mashed potatoes, whipped with cream and butter and enlivened with scallion. An Irish cook's reputation rests on the dish, and Rosaleen Tallon told Chef Stephen, as she and her husband call him, exactly how to make it. He doesn't use fancy heirlooms, just Idahoes. It's so good you'll want a side of champ ($4) no matter what you order.

Lamb kebab ($22) may not be Irish (even if lamb is), but it's all-purpose pleasing, with a big portion of meat and a big flavor that draws on zahtar, the pungent Middle Eastern herb rub; fat Israeli couscous; and tzatziki, the Greek cucumber-garlic-yogurt sauce. For the Irish touch, there's Guinness in a lamb-stock reduction the cooks call lacquer, which they brush on just before serving. You won't notice the beer, as you likely won't the Smithwick's ale in the steamed mussels ($8); the depth of flavor and care for the prime ingredient, though, is plain in both dishes. It's likewise in the Berkshire pork tenderloin ($22), marvelously sweet in itself and from the addition of a bit of molasses in a chicken-stock jus, served with a chunk of roasted sweet potato as beautiful and impressive as the meat.

Grilled salmon on a cedar plank ($21), though, was dry, flavorless, and not helped by the orange-and-mirin-spiked soy sauce on the side or the gummy black rice mounted high with butter. The addition of asparagus tempura made for an odd plate. Salmon belly got a tempura treatment in a similarly odd “seafood trio” appetizer ($11), the salmon marinated in ginger, lime, and jalapeño and incongruously served with a pâté of smoked bluefish and cream cheese, and shrimp marinated in a jalapeño-ginger-lemongrass Thai paste and grilled on a sugarcane skewer. (The frying, again, isn't the problem—it's fine, as shown in the un-gussied-up fish and chips ($17) in a Berkshire porter batter, with tartar sauce and spiked ketchup.) The shepherd's pie ($19), too, strayed overly far from the hearty, humble original for my taste: a Bolognese sauce with beef and lamb instead of pork, separated from its liquid and packed into a mold over, strangely, a corn-cake arepa, the whole thing topped with piped-out duchess potatoes. Give me mashed taters!

For dessert, there's ice cream ($3) from Jeff Fournier's Citrio, a catering and takeout shop across from 51 Lincoln. (Alternatively, you could head down the street to Ron's, Hyde Park's legendary candlepin -bowling/ice cream parlor.) Or, given the marvelous array of beers on tap, you might want to adopt the Brit custom of ending with a savory instead of a sweet. May I suggest the fat, drumstick-only “lollipop wings” ($11)? They come with a garlicky blue cheese dressing that's exactly what you might get after dinner in Ireland or England. And then there is the superior glaze. Hoddinott adapted the recipe from a youthful stint at an old-fashioned diner, and learned a few tricks: Make it sweet (he uses balsamic vinegar) and not too hot (a touch of the Buffalo-mandated Frank's hot sauce). The real secret? Pounds of cold butter to cut the heat. Any Irish cook would completely approve.