The Oval Bar

Just what Dublin needs - another pub claiming to serve "traditional fare" while tourists snap photos of their perfectly poured Guinness for Instagram. The Oval Bar has been drawing crowds like moths to a Edison bulb-lit flame, and I'd managed to avoid it for months. But after three separate locals insisted I give it a try, I reluctantly dragged myself through its doors, armed with my lowest expectations and sharpest criticism.

I hate to admit when I'm wrong. Really hate it. But The Oval Bar in Dublin's city center has made a fool of me, and I suppose I should come clean about it.

First, the architecture. While most "historic" Dublin pubs feel like they were decorated by someone's grandmother who raided a flea market, The Oval Bar actually manages to pull off stunning without crossing into pretentious. The three-story space showcases genuine Victorian charm that doesn't feel manufactured for tourist photos. Though watch your head on those staircases - nothing says "authentic Irish pub" quite like a concussion.

The Guinness here is €6.80, which initially had me rolling my eyes. But then I watched the bartender pour it with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious ceremonies, and I realized I was witnessing something approaching artistry. Not that I'll ever tell them that to their faces.

Let's talk food, because that's where I was certain The Oval Bar would falter. The Irish stew (€19) seemed predictably safe, the kind of dish tourists order because they can't pronounce anything else on the menu. But the first spoonful stopped my cynical inner monologue dead in its tracks. The lamb was tender enough to cut with a stern look, the vegetables actually tasted like vegetables (a rarity in pub food), and the broth... well, let's just say I may have momentarily forgotten my professional obligation to find fault with everything.

The seafood chowder deserves its own paragraph. Actually, it deserves its own sonnet, but I'll spare you my poetry. It's the kind of dish that makes you angry - angry that other chowders have been lying to you your whole life, angry that you can't eat it every day without your doctor intervening, angry that you have to share it when your dining companion inevitably wants a taste.

Service is... interesting. Sometimes prompt, sometimes seemingly operating on a different temporal plane entirely. But there's an authenticity to it that's becoming rare in Dublin's more polished establishments. They're not fawning over you with rehearsed pleasantries - they're busy, they know it, and they'll get to you when they get to you. Strangely refreshing, if occasionally frustrating.

The crowd is an improbable mix of suited business types, curious tourists, and locals who look like they've had the same bar stool reservation since the Carter administration. Somehow, it works. The three floors mean you can usually find your preferred atmosphere - lively bar scene downstairs, more reserved dining upstairs, and a middle floor that serves as a sort of demilitarized zone between the two.

For groups, they offer reservations - a concept apparently foreign to many Dublin pubs - and actually honor them, which shouldn't be noteworthy but somehow is. The menu for children isn't an afterthought of chicken nuggets and chips, though good luck getting kids to try the smoked salmon open sandwich (their loss - it's spectacular).

Look, I wanted to hate The Oval Bar. I wanted to dismiss it as another overpriced tourist trap in a city that's increasingly full of them. But it's managed to do something remarkably difficult: maintain authenticity while evolving beyond the sticky-floor, pictures-of-racehorses-on-the-wall Irish pub stereotype.

So here's my grudging recommendation: Go to The Oval Bar in Dublin. Go for the surprisingly excellent food, stay for the perfectly poured Guinness, and accept that sometimes the crowds get it right. Just don't tell them I sent you - I have a reputation to maintain.