Daffodil Mulligan Brings Ireland To Shoreditch

In 2019 Richard Corrigan went east. He took over a site near Old Street, on the edge of Shoreditch and the City, where a restaurant called Nuala had closed^[2].

The new place had a name with a past. Daffodil Mulligan brought back Mulligan's, the name of his first London restaurant from decades before^[2].

Irish At Heart

This one was openly Irish. Harden's called it his first Irish-slanted venture in recent times^[2]. The kitchen was built around a wood-fired grill^[1], and the food took its cue from his farm at Virginia Park Lodge^[2].

He did not do it alone. John Nugent of Green & Fortune came in to run the front of house^[2]. Tony Gibney, of the Gibney's pub in Malahide, took charge of the bar^[2]. Peter Millican, founder of Kings Place, was to curate the music^[2].

A Bar Downstairs

The partnership grew. In 2020 the basement bar Gibney's London opened, made with the Gibney family of Malahide and John Nugent^[1]. A little bit of north Co Dublin had arrived in Shoreditch.

The timing fits his steady pace. Daffodil Mulligan came roughly a decade after Corrigan's Mayfair, with an estate in Cavan in between^[1].

Today it sits in the Corrigan Collection beside Bentley's, Corrigan's Mayfair and the Portrait Restaurant, which he opened with Searcys at the National Portrait Gallery in 2023^[1][3].

For a chef with two Michelin-starred kitchens behind him, it was also a relaxed change of tone. Here the focus was hearty food from Ireland and Britain, cooked over flames and shared at the table^[2].

The idea was more than food. Harden's reported that it would launch as a social co-op of like-minded people, with music on site and drinks made from fruit from his own orchards^[2]. It was a pub, a restaurant and a music room in one.

From Mulligan's to Daffodil Mulligan, the name tells his story. A young Irish head chef in Mayfair became the owner of a group, and then brought the name home to a room full of Irish music and fire^[1][2].