The name travels further than the recipe. McSorley's borrows it from New York's oldest ale house, open since 1854, and plants the idea on a Staunton Street corner in SoHo: ale, whiskey, live sport, and a kitchen that has never been shy about a curry.
The Irish ale house is a particular branch of the pub family, built on cask and keg ale rather than stout alone, and on the long bar as the social spine of the room. Hong Kong's SoHo, climbing the slope above Central on the back of the mid-levels escalator, has carried a McSorley's for years. The bar reopened with a refreshed look and a menu that leans on whiskey, craft beer and pub food, a change Honeycombers covered when it returned to the neighbourhood. OpenRice still files it, with a straight face, as an Irish curry bar, which captures the room's habit of bending the format to its crowd.
An ale house lives or dies on its keg list and the condition it keeps. The discipline is unglamorous: clean lines, the right serve temperature, and a rotation that gives regulars a reason to check the board. McSorley's plays to that, stacking ale and whiskey against the SoHo default of cocktails, and putting screens up so a Premier League afternoon has a home above the escalator. The curry on the menu is not a gimmick so much as a Hong Kong pub habit, the same instinct that put a tandoor behind more than one of the city's expat bars.
The room
The ground-floor space is compact and wood-lined, open toward the street so the SoHo foot traffic spills past the door. Screens are placed for the bar and the high tables to share, the lighting is low, and the crowd is the Central mix of office regulars, residents and visitors working their way up the hill. It is a standing-and-leaning room as much as a sitting one once a match is on. The fit-out keeps the ale-house furniture, dark timber and a long bar front, rather than chasing the polished look of the cocktail rooms further up Staunton Street.
What to order
Order from the keg board first and the whiskey shelf second, because those are the two things the house is built to do. The draught list runs to ales and craft beer alongside the lagers, and the kitchen sends out pub plates plus the curry the listings keep mentioning. The honest order is a pint of ale, a curry timed to half-time, and a whiskey to close. The whiskey shelf runs deeper than a pub of this size needs, with Irish and Scotch bottlings that reward a browse before you commit. Prices track the mid-range SoHo norm rather than the cocktail-bar ceiling next door.
Who it is for
Ale drinkers, whiskey browsers and anyone who wants the match on in Central without paying SoHo cocktail prices. For the full field of where the city watches sport, our Hong Kong sports bar ranking sets McSorley's beside harbour-side Irish rooms like Stone's and Wan Chai screens.
Best time to go
The pub runs from midday until late every day, and the room turns on the fixture list, filling for Premier League weekends and the big rugby dates. Arrive ahead of kickoff to claim a spot with a clear screen. Plan the wider night with our Hong Kong guide and our guide to watching the game in Hong Kong.
Sources
Reporting for this profile draws on the official McSorley's Hong Kong site, Time Out Hong Kong, and the OpenRice listing.
