Aulde Dubliner & Pour House

The carved wood, the gold-leaf detail, the mezzanine balcony overhead — all of it was built in Ireland, then taken apart, shipped across the Atlantic, and reassembled at the mouth of Ottawa's ByWard Market. The Aulde Dubliner & Pour House is an Irish pub in the most literal sense of the term: a two-storey Irish room set down whole on William Street, where the market's foot traffic first spills in from the neighbourhood. Two patios open it onto the street when the weather allows. Inside, the balcony looks down over a main floor that starts filling at lunch and does not really empty until last call.

The kitchen keeps its bearings close to that identity. Fish and chips arrive as wild Atlantic Irish hake in a crisp batter, plated with chips, tartar and house-made coleslaw. The braised lamb shank is the clearest sit-down dinner on the menu — slow-cooked over Irish cheddar polenta, finished with beef jus, crispy parsnips and red-wine-braised cabbage. The seafood chowder runs deeper than most pub bowls, carrying Irish hake, scallops, shrimp, Atlantic salmon and smoked bacon under a scatter of dill, with toasted crostini alongside to make a starter substantial. Bangers and mash come with Guinness onions, mushrooms and crispy shallots over mashed potato and beef gravy; the Irish beef stew is thickened around root vegetables and herbs and finished with Bradley's whiskey. Shepherd's pie and a classic Dubliner burger round out the traditional side.

What keeps the menu from reading as a museum piece is everything arranged around that Irish core. The same kitchen turns out smoked pulled pork tacos with spiced remoulade, coleslaw and Tajín; triple pickle fries layered with dill pickle aioli and chopped pickles; a double smash burger built on whiskey BBQ pork belly and Irish cheddar; a pepperoni-and-tomato-jam pinsa; and lemongrass chicken dumplings. The result is a pub that honours the tradition it was built to serve without being trapped inside it. The hake, the lamb and the chowder hold the centre; the tacos, the pinsa and the smash burger keep the board current for a table that did not come for stew.

The Pour House half of the name is not decoration. Beer and wine anchor the drinks list, and a rotation of daily deals keeps the tab predictable — five-dollar house pints on Monday, half-price house wine on Tuesday, nine-dollar quarts and craft cans on Thursday, six-dollar Caesars on Sunday. Bookings run through OpenTable for tables that want to plan, and the same menu travels by delivery for the nights nobody wants to cook. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and allergy-aware options are handled through the staff rather than a separate menu, which suits a kitchen that would rather adjust a plate than advertise a category.

The day has a shape to it. The Dubliner opens at eleven and runs to two in the morning, with the kitchen sending food until one and a late-night menu taking over after ten. Live music lands four nights a week with no cover, which turns the later hours social in a way the lunch service is not — children are welcome until nine, and the earlier stretch works as an ordinary market lunch. Since it opened in 2003, that swing from daytime dining to late-night pub has been the working rhythm, and the two halves rarely get in each other's way.

By late evening the balcony fills, a band starts up on the main floor below, and the market outside empties while the pub keeps going. This is the Aulde Dubliner at its most itself: an imported Irish room at the front door of the ByWard Market, still sending out hake and stew to a full house while the streets go quiet. The last plates leave the kitchen at one in the morning; the taps run an hour past that.