Page 6 — THE PORTLAND DAILY SUN, Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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What ‘one dish, one glass’ can tell us One dish, one drink. Let’s see what we can learn from a person’s favorite drink and favorite meal... Daniel Steele’s ideal dinner is a study in contrasts – delicately Frenched Icelandic lamb ribs marinated with garlic and tamari then grilled to get that gorgeous brown crust. Next to it are generous slabs of raw toro, the fatty tuna underbelly that sits contentedly atop a throne of vinegared rice. It’s a lot like the contrasts in the community that frequents Brian Boru – some patrons are refined and some are decidedly rough around the edges — you find fishermen, physicians, the moneyed trustafarians, misfits and leading politicians. “Governor John Baldacci liked to say that he raised most of the money for his first campaign at the back table,” Daniel chuckles. Daniel is one of the owners of the pub, the Portland Public House founded in 1993 by brothers Justin and Fergus O’Reilly and their friend Laurence Kelly. Steele joined them the following year. Recently celebrating his 50th birthday, Daniel was born
Margo Mallar ––––– Daily Sun Columnist on Cape Cod, the sixth of six children in a family with deep appreciation for history, literature and practical business skills. His father died when Daniel was just a baby and his mother decided to move them away from the creeping commercialization of the Cape to the quietly intellectual town of Peterborough, New Hampshire. He attended Bowdoin, his father’s alma mater, studying Economics and Contemporary Latin American Studies. After graduation he did a stint in D.C. as a legislative assistant to New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg. He then headed south to explore Central and South America, living in Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia before returning to Peterborough to join his brother’s real estate development firm.
Join the conversation Daniel Steele is one of the owners of Brian Boru, the Portland Public House founded in 1993 by brothers Justin and Fergus O’Reilly and their friend Laurence Kelly. (MARGO MALLAR PHOTO)
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Their projects ranged from renovations to condos and Daniel was enthusiastically involved in all aspects, from negotiations to quarrying granite. His appreciation for architectural design deepened with his explorations of masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Isamu Noguchi, leading to an aesthetic that he calls Asian meets Stone. Daniel’s portfolio from that time is full of design projects merging ancient wood and stone traditions with the occasional element of whimsy. He was at work on a project of his own design in 2004, when a fall from the scaffolding shattered a leg and forced him to confront a life far less physical than he was used to. Running, biking, skiing, working construction were no longer possible. Mortality, fallibility-call them clichés – but they can hit hard. It has been a long recovery. He is now an avid walker and recently took up swimming and tai chi, two forms of the soft consistent exercise that Daniel says longevity experts point to as essential. He enjoys the support of the Brian Boru community and has recently been seen around town with a cute little Irish creature who sports an Italian name. Enzo is a Rough Coat Terrier named for Enzo Ferrari,
the race car driver and automobile manufacturer “because he’s low, fast and fun,” he quips. There’s a poster in the front window of Boru, counting down the days to St. Patrick’s Day, when the pub opens at 6 a.m. “It’s our busiest day of the year. By 8 a.m. it will look like Friday happy hour,” he says. “We’ve lasted for more than 17 years and I think it’s because we try to use this platform to provide a place that allows constructive interaction and good activity, not a place predicated on the over-consumption of alcohol. You can get anything here from lobster to legal advice, medical advice and a safe protective space to just spend a little time.” What’s typically in Daniel’s glass? Guinness or Harp or one of the several Maine beers served in the red building on Center Street, that has been a rooming house, laundromat, health food store and leather biker bar in its past, a past as colorful as the men and women who call it their local these days. (Margo Mallar chops, stirs, bakes and writes in the East End. Her Locavore column appears each Tuesday in the Portland Daily Sun.)