Maggie Murphy's, Glasgow - Restaurants in Glasgow | s1play.com

Comfort zone with an Eire of change

Review published on 25/11/2009 © Sunday Herald

Glasgow's Bath Street is a literal - if slightly idealised - parallel to the more roughhouse charms of Sauchiehall Street. They're both dedicated party boulevards, but on Bath Street the bars are a little more stylish, the clubs are a little more exclusive and the restaurants are a bit more upmarket.

But as you head up towards Charing Cross, the socialising options suddenly thin out. And once you crest the hill, there are slim pickings indeed, unless you fancy dancing on the still undeveloped grave of the Shack nightclub, abruptly taken from us by fire in 2004.

There are signs of a revival on this block, though. A new bar called the Bath Street Pony will be hot to trot by the end of the year, and the former basement restaurant Tao has recently been reincarnated as Maggie Murphy's, a two-room Irish bar and kitchen that is far more restrained than its garish signage suggests.

Just as Tao didn't go overboard with the interior design clichés of stereotypical Chinese restaurants, there is a distinct lack of bodhrans and other bobbins in Maggie Murphy's - although on the night of our visit, there is a female mannequin in a Guinness-branded rugby top manipulated to resemble one of the indecorous tables in A Clockwork Orange's Korova Milk Bar. Like The Two Figs on Byres Road, Maggie's has had to figure out how best to utilise two distinct rooms joined by an umbilical corridor. The main bar has booths, TV screens, a casual dining menu, a small stage and that female mannequin with the fearsome talent for yoga.

The dining room is quieter, deceptively large and tastefully decorated, with nary a shamrock in sight. On the menu, "Irishness" appears to have been roughly translated as "hearty, well-sourced, traditional comfort grub", although the chef couldn't resist adding Guinness to the chocolate fudge cake.

For starters, my companion and I both hanker after some seafood; his salmon fishcakes are impressively proportioned, bulked out by potato, but not to an overwhelming degree. My own prawn and smoked salmon timbale looks daintier but has plenty of succulent prawns compressed within.

The main course selection is unfussy and reasonably unadorned, the sort of fare you fancy when you feel the first nip of winter: fish and chips, mince and tatties, steak pie. The steak of the day snares my companion, a ribeye cooked rigorously to specification and accompanied by a healthy, pungent jus and chargrilled vegetables. My pan-fried chicken breast with tatties and haggis looks a little stranded stacked up in the middle of its enormous plate but once I've knocked out the foundations and spread it around, there's plenty of good eating.

This agreeable brand of handsomely presented comfort food might even be too effective; there's no room left to even contemplate that Guinness/chocolate/fudge fusion. My canny companion has saved some storage capacity for a lemon cheesecake; it arrives beautifully presented and vanishes seconds later, as if by leprechaun magic.

For all its admirable understatement, Maggie's transformation from the Far East to the Emerald Isle seems to be a work-in-progress; the bill still says "Tao" and the premium beer on tap is the distinctly un-Irish lager Tiger (although until recently, that could have simply been rebranded "Celtic Tiger"). There are more welcome hangovers, though; Tao had attentive, professional service and Maggie's continues the admirable tradition.

And even if that wasn't quite enough to sustain the last tenant, it's a decent start. And the Irish are nothing if not lucky.