Doc Magilligan’s Restaurant & Irish Pub

The bar at Doc Magilligan's was built in Ireland. The joinery, the dark wood, the relics fixed along the walls were handcrafted overseas, crated across the Atlantic, and reassembled on Lundy's Lane, so the Irish pub a guest walks into is a literal import rather than a themed approximation of one. It sits in the Lundy's Lane District of Niagara Falls, sharing ground with the Cairn Croft hotel, and it keeps a long day: breakfast in the morning, dinner after the Falls, a pint and a match well past dark, all out of the same kitchen and the same taps.

The kitchen keeps Irish pub food in the foreground instead of treating it as set dressing. Magilligan's Fish & Chips arrives as a blue cod fillet dipped in a house blend of Harp lager batter and fried crisp, with fries, coleslaw and tartar. Boxty — the Irish potato pancake — runs as its own lane: the Steak & Mushroom version wraps braised beef and button mushrooms under a house-made bleu cheese drizzle, the Corned Beef & Swiss folds in caramelized onions and honey Dijon, and a breakfast boxty bundles egg, sausage and bacon with hollandaise. The Taste of Ireland sampler plates traditional fare in miniature — shepherd's pie, Madras chicken curry, steak and mushroom pie among the choices — with grilled Irish soda bread. The sandwich board stays in the same comfort register: a Reuben of corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss on marble rye, a brisket grilled cheese with Brie, cheddar and caramelized onions on sourdough. Then there is Chicken Wing Chowder, which carries the flavour of Buffalo wings in soup form, and Reuben Bites fried with cream cheese and sauerkraut.