When you first meet Kevin
McGarvey, owner of McGarvey’s Wee Pub, it doesn’t take long before he snares
you with a Gaelic joke.
“What’s a typical
7-course Irish meal?” he asks, trying to keep a straight face. “A six-pack and
a potato.”
Now, before you
organize a protest against ethnic humor, remember that Kevin can lay claim to
Irish jokes, being from one of Brunswick’s most prominent families of Irish
descent. The McGarvey family goes back into the 19th century in
Brunswick, when they opened one of the city’s first and finest furniture stores
in 1886. His great-aunts were scions of culture in town, founding one of the
first performing arts groups, writing and producing a historical pageant to
celebrate the city’s centennial in 1956.
Kevin opened McGarvey’s
Wee Pub in downtown Brunswick in 2003. The pub moved to its current location in
the new Glynn Isles shopping complex on Altama Avenue in 2008. The venture was
started “just for fun” at first, but its popularity quickly established it as a
local favorite with a dedicated following. A second location in St. Marys will
open soon. As a past winner in several categories and 2012 participant in A
Taste of Glynn, McGarvey team is ready to step up their game to compete again this
March.
What defines a true
Irish pub? The cozy, warm, friendly feeling along with great food, Kevin noted,
are key elements. In his yearly trips to Ireland, he travels the countryside
sampling the food in every part of his ancestral land, collecting ideas and
inspiration.
“Pubs in Ireland are
true community gathering places,” he explained. “The winters there are very
cold, damp and dark. The sun comes up at 9:00 AM, and it starts to get dark
around 3:00 PM, so people need someplace comfortable to socialize. I can’t
count how many times I’ve looked at a typical street in any town in Ireland on
a winter late afternoon to see people walking up a hill in the dark. Then they open the door to the pub,
where the light just glows out into the street.”
“Pubs are not just
places to get alcohol,” he added. “They are family establishments, where people
bring their children and cheer on their favorite sports teams. They are places
to get incredible food, too. You can go into the tiniest, most humble place in
Ireland and get a truly fine meal for a very good price. The Irish are
extremely proud of their food, with good reason. That friendly family
atmosphere and great food are what I wanted to bring back home to Brunswick,
and we are happy to have accomplished that.”
Dan Black, (pictured, above with Pub
staff, L-R, Tari Essig, Kathryn Jordan, and Myranda Batten) is the manager and culinary heart of the Wee Pub. He has been busy
creating typical Irish dishes for the Golden Isles.
“We have things that
nobody else has,” he said. “Everything is home-made from scratch. There are
specials every day, like Meat Loaf Monday. We have traditional hearty food like
‘bangers and mash,’ pot pies and shepherd’s pie. We also do a great home-made
chili that is really popular, and we’ve just added some lighter fare to the
menu.”
So what secrets can
chefs-at-home steal from the Wee Pub? Their winning ways with soups, in
particular, are well known in the area and to the judges at A Taste of Glynn.
Dan Black shared a few pointers for making soup that can win prizes with your
family and guests.
“The secret is
preparing everything in one pot, using an aromatic base called ‘mirepoix.’ If
you are making something other than a white soup, you start with celery, onions
and carrots. If it were a white soup, you would leave off the carrots. You sear
the ingredients for the base of your soup, maybe combined with a little bacon,
stir up the brown bits and deglaze in one utensil.”
“But the real
difference in any dish is to use the recipe mainly as a guide,” he went on. “I
would say that the recipe is 95% of the finished product. The other 5% is
tasting and correcting the seasoning. Before you finish preparing a dish, close
your eyes and taste. Give yourself a minute or two to decide what’s missing and
add it in. Your own taste buds are more important than any recipe.”
What about our
universal questions for the 2012 A Taste of Glynn blog: favorite dinners and
celebrity chefs? Kevin McGarvey admires Kevin Dundon, cookbook author and
preeminent Irish chef. If he could order anything in the world for dinner, it
wouldn’t be dinner- it would be a typical Irish breakfast.
“We are talking about
a huge meal here,” he pointed out. “You have three types of sausage, soda bread
with plenty of pure Irish butter, sautéed mushrooms, the freshest eggs cooked
to order, and what is called bacon over there–more like our ham. Plus lots of
hot, hot tea. Perfect for warming you up on a cold morning.”
Dan spends a great
deal of his time in and around the kitchen, but if he had a chance to turn the
tables and be the customer, he would dine on mussels diablo as an appetizer, lamb chops with potatoes au gratin
and fresh asparagus. Dessert would be the Wee Pub’s bread pudding, the
first-place winner in the dessert category at 2010 A Taste of Glynn. His
favorite celebrity chef is hot-tempered Gordon Ramsey.
“You’d really want
to work hard to impress a guy like that,” Dan grinned. Apparently, Dan has
impressed other television moguls already. He is a featured candidate for
finding true love in the upcoming “Lovetown” series produced by the Oprah
Winfrey Network. Will love conquer all? It’s very likely that it can all on its
own, but being able to whip up a deep-dish chicken pot pie with tender veggies
and a melt-in-your-mouth flakey crust couldn’t hurt, either.
Be sure to stop by
the booth for McGarvey’s Wee Pub at this year’s A Taste of Glynn on March 25,
2012, from 5-8 pm. at the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort. Tickets are
available at the King and Prince, and SunTrust Bank locations on Demere Road
and Sea Island Road on St. Simons. In Brunswick, purchase tickets at LaiLai’s,
Hattie’s Books, color me happy and Moore Stephens Tiller LLC. Or call the Glynn
Community Crisis Center at 264-1348.
Photo by Lindy Thompson, Golden Isles Photography
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