There are pubs in Liverpool that lean on their history, and then there is Ma Boyle's Alehouse & Eatery, which has been sitting in the Tower Building at 7 Tower Gardens since 1974. The building itself goes back to 1860, and before it settled into its current life as a gastro pub and bistro, it had stints as a coffee shop and an oyster bar. It sits right in the city centre business district, a short walk from Albert Dock, Pier Head and the Cruise Liner Terminal, which makes it an easy place to drop into whether you are working nearby or just passing through on a weekend.
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Food is the obvious starting point here. The place is best known for its Scouse, and that sits alongside handcrafted cocktails, local ales and home-cooked cooking that changes across the week. There is a Scouse menu, a lunch menu from 12 to 3pm, a main menu from 3pm, a Sunday menu running 12 to 9pm and a weekend brunch from 9am to midday, plus a drinks menu to cover the gaps. The Sunday roast is the one people talk about most, served from noon with all the trimmings, and the weekend brunches come with bottomless prosecco and spritz options if that is more your speed.
What keeps people coming back during the week, though, is the programming. Mondays are for the pub quiz, which kicks off at 7pm and costs £1 a player, with a £50 bar tab for first, £25 cash for second and prosecco for third. Fridays hand over to a Live Latin-Jazz Night from 7pm, with Cuban, Brazilian and Latin-Jazz brought in by Liverpool's ParrJazz, and Saturdays keep the jazz going from 8pm with a rotation of the North's best players, again curated by ParrJazz. Between the two, the place turns into a proper music venue on the weekends.
On the practical side, it is open Monday to Friday from 11.30am to 11pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 11pm, with the kitchen closing at 9pm Sunday to Thursday and 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Tables of one to nine can be booked through the widget, while anything ten or larger needs an email to hello@mapubgroup.co.uk. A 10% service charge is added for groups of six or more on food and bottomless brunch bookings, and for bookable space or private hire, bookings@mapubgroup.co.uk is the address to use. There is a basement area and the Rum and Rumour Kabaret bar, both of which work for private parties and exclusive hire. For everything else, the phone number is 0151 236 0070, general enquiries go to hello@mapubgroup.co.uk and PR to damo@tandempr.co.uk. Gift vouchers come in denominations of £10, £20, £25, £30 and £50 and are sent electronically.
It is worth noting how well-regarded the place is. It holds a 4.8-star rating from 2,050 reviews and has been recommended by The Guardian, The Telegraph, HuffPost, The Evening Standard and Visit Britain, which is a fair amount of backing for a pub in the middle of town. Whether you go for the Scouse, the Sunday roast or the jazz, it is a solid Liverpool institution that has earned its place over the decades.
