Irish Soda Bread Finally Gets Its Due in Manhattan

Soda bread changed the history of Ireland: In a century plagued by famine, its simple recipe utilized four readily available ingredients — soft wheat, sour milk, salt, and the baking soda that had been newly introduced to the Emerald Isle in the 1830s. The combination of sour milk and baking soda generated the leavening that could replace yeast or sourdough.

That bread became a symbol of Ireland, enhanced with raisins, butter, sugar, and buttermilk instead of sour milk as times got better. And soda bread never lost its magical power to aid the Irish, even two centuries later. It seems that Mary O’Halloran’s bar on Avenue A, Mary O’s, had to shut down due to the pandemic in 2021. So, she started making and selling soda bread based on a recipe of her mother’s and was able to make ends meet, support her six children, and save the bar.

That soda bread, fashioned into scones that sold for $30 for a box of six, became legendary. In fact, she reportedly sold a million dollars worth. And just recently she parlayed that success into a standalone business in an East Village storefront called Mary O’s Irish Soda Bread Shop, at 93 1/2 East Seventh Street, near First Avenue. It’s a trim little storefront with a counter and convection oven way in back, with little seating to speak of. In the front of the store are a couple of shelves of Irish groceries, including Barry’s Tea and Odlums Self Raising Flour, along with sparse antique furnishings that make it seem like granny’s parlor.

The shop sells round scones baked in muffin tins, rather than the more conventional wedge-shaped scones, as well as round loaves of soda bread. A single scone is $6, while a boxed half-dozen sells for $30. The loaves are also $30 — though they had run out when I passed by last Saturday. The place is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

These scones are delicious: moist, raisin-y, and slightly sweet, with a notable crunch. The scones come with Mary’s homemade blackberry jam and a quantity of full-cream Irish butter. And they’ve made the East Village — not Irish neighborhoods like Woodside or Woodlawn Heights — the Irish soda bread capital of New York City.