Waxy O’Connor’s, Glasgow: the jug of water is free, and in Scotland that is the law

“Damn, this is so good, come on, let’s sit here.”

We must have said this phrase four times. Four times, going up one more staircase, pushing through one more door, in a pub where we still hadn’t ordered anything. Waxy O’Connor’s is at 44 West George Street, right in the centre of Glasgow, a large stone archway stuck in an office street, and behind this arch, a place we’ve seen nowhere else.

We had already passed by during our first stay in Glasgow, taken by a friend of Caroline who knew the city. We came out with a very clear image in our heads, and of course, returning in August, there was a little fear of finding the place less beautiful than in memory. It didn’t fail, but in a good way. Clearly, when you walk in, you get a shock.

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The wood in this pub wasn’t made for this pub

Here’s the thing that nagged at me throughout the meal without me being able to pinpoint it. The woodwork is too polished, too crafted, too serious. These arched panels, these Gothic trefoils, these carved balusters, they don’t look like pub fittings ordered from a catalogue, they look like furniture that has served elsewhere. And in fact, that’s exactly it.

Waxy O’Connor’s Glasgow opened in 1999, and its decor was assembled from reclaimed church joinery, stained glass, and reused tiled floors, spread across six bars and three levels connected by a maze of staircases and passages. I’m not making this up, it’s the operator itself, the Glendola Leisure group, that describes its pub this way. So when you feel like you are sitting in a choir stall, it’s not a romantic impression at the end of the night. It’s literally church furniture, taken apart somewhere and reassembled here.

And for the history of the building itself, a little surprise: before Waxy’s, the address housed an establishment called Carnegie’s through the 1980s and 1990s. This gothic Irish pub hasn’t been around for centuries, it is less than thirty years old, which makes the result even more impressive when you know that everything was assembled from scratch.

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Impossible to choose where to sit

We walked around the pub several times before settling down somewhere. Not because there wasn’t space, there was. Because every new corner made us want to change our minds. We move a few yards, go up three steps, and there’s another space, another ceiling, another light, and Caroline says “oh no, come on, let’s sit here, it’s even more beautiful.” Then again: “come on, let’s sit next to the wooden stuff, it’s even prettier.”

The decor is dominated by wood from floor to ceiling, with leather benches, passages, staircases, mezzanines, and at times the frankly crazy impression that whole trees rise through the pub to sink into the roof. You find all the visual codes you imagine when you think “pub,” except they are pushed to a level that is no longer reasonable.

A detail I found clever, and which shows that the place is thoughtfully designed and not just decorated: it’s very dark everywhere, and there are small lights installed at the level of the steps. As a result, you can move around the stairs without tripping, while constantly looking up.

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In the end, we settled down, and the pleasure of the place already came largely from this stroll. We had visited the pub even before drinking anything.

So, this tree in the middle of the pub?

It’s the element that everyone talks about, and it’s also the one on which I’ve read the most nonsense, some of which I had noted incorrectly myself. So let’s clarify things, because the real story is prettier than the one that circulates.

The tree of the Waxy O’Connor’s brand, the one everyone talks about, is a beech planted about 250 years ago in the Irish Midlands, which died naturally in 1994. A local carpenter cut it up, and the pieces were shipped and then “replanted” inside the pub in August 1995. Except that this pub is the one in London, and the story is told by the London pub itself.

The Waxy’s in Glasgow opened four years later, in 1999, and it has its own tree that spans the entire height of the atrium over three floors. But its operator does not give its species or age. So if someone tells you that the Glasgow tree is a 250-year-old elm carved from a single trunk, beware: it’s not an elm, the 250-year story belongs to London, and the nickname “Tree of Life” that you read everywhere does not appear on any official source from the place. This doesn’t take away from the spectacle, it just puts the legend in its place.

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No, it’s not a unique pub in the world (and we don’t really care)

Second thing I believed that deserves correction. Upon leaving, I told Caroline that this was clearly not the kind of pub you encounter on every corner. Regarding the decor, that’s still true. Regarding the sign, a little less: Waxy O’Connor’s is a Glendola Leisure brand, with a second one in London, in Chinatown. You already know how a themed Irish pub usually goes. This is not that, and the reason is that the fittings are genuinely old even though the pub is not.

Another line we had read again and again, and repeated ourselves: “one of the most beautiful pubs in Europe.” I found no serious and verifiable ranking behind this phrase. It’s a marketing phrase that gets copied from site to site. The pub is magnificent, it doesn’t need a fake ranking to stand on its own.

While we’re on names, the pub’s name is worth mentioning too. Waxy O’Connor, whose real name was Finbar O’Connor, was a Dublin candle maker born in 1788. At sixteen, he followed his father into the trade, and he ended up being nicknamed “Waxy,” the candlemaker. A bar named after a candle worker sets the tone for a place where almost all the light comes from low lamps and stained glass.

What we ate, and what it costs

The decor could very well have served as an excuse to charge for an attraction. That’s not the case, and it might be what surprised us the most in a city where we had found the value for money harsh since we arrived. The menu is short and readable: small plates ranged from £7 to £9, large plates from £14 to £17.

The menu embraces its Irish side without falling into folklore: Ballymaloe sausage, Clonakilty black pudding, McDonnells curry sauce, homemade chowder with smoked haddock and salmon. And since we’re in Glasgow, the breakfast served all day smoothly includes haggis and a tattie scone among all that.

Caroline had the Guinness mac and cheese, topped with crispy onions and herb breadcrumbs, served with a slice of roasted garlic bread. I had a burger, served in a sesame brioche bun with chips and a jalapeño coleslaw. Mine was very good, honestly above what I expected from a city centre pub.

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Mac and cheese, we don’t agree

And here, I need to say things honestly rather than pretending to agree for the photo. Caroline found her mac and cheese good. I tasted it, and the pasta was very soft, far from Italian cooking. We had exactly the same plate in front of us and came out with different opinions.

This didn’t ruin our meal, and I sincerely think it depends on what you expect from a mac and cheese. If you see it as a comforting melting dish, you’ll be on Caroline’s side. If you have a religion about al dente, you’ll be on my side. The rest of the menu seems broad enough that this question doesn’t arise.

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The sparkling water we weren’t charged for

Little moment of hesitation at the bill: the sparkling water we had ordered wasn’t there. Not a bottle, but water served from a distribution system, filled directly at the counter. At the time, we thought it was a nice gesture from the bar, and in a city we found expensive, it touched us.

Upon checking afterwards, it’s more interesting than that, and it’s information that serves for an entire trip in Scotland. The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 requires any establishment holding an alcohol license, so all pubs, bars, and restaurants serving alcohol, to provide a very simple condition, written in black and white in Schedule 3: drinking water must be provided free of charge on request. The pub can technically charge for the glass, not the water.

The honest nuance is that the law specifically mentions tap water, not sparkling. That Waxy’s didn’t charge us for the sparkling water from the dispenser, that’s the establishment going beyond what is required. But keep the rule: in Scotland, asking for a jug of tap water in a pub is not a favour, it is a right. If you have come up from England, that one is worth carrying for the whole trip.

Who it’s for

I’m going to repeat the phrase I said to Caroline on the way out, because I can’t do better: it’s for anyone who wants, by passing through a door, to be transported to a world they’ve never seen. That’s exactly what happens. The decor, the levels, the wood, the darkness, and the music, which will be entirely familiar to you, take you out of the city for two hours.

If you come for a pint and a match, it works too, but you’ll miss out. The good plan is to go at the beginning of service or during a quiet afternoon, when there are few enough people to allow you to tour the six bars without disturbing anyone. At ten on a Friday night, you will see none of it.

And while you’re in Glasgow

Waxy’s is right in the city centre, so it is easy to combine with the rest. About twenty minutes west on the Subway, there’s the University of Glasgow and its arches, which plays in the same category as the pub in terms of visual impact, and not far from there is Stravaigin, the West End restaurant where we had the best mussels of our lives. The rest of our stops are grouped in our Glasgow road trip guide.

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Destination

University of Glasgow

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Stravaigin, Glasgow: the name shares a root with extravagant, and the menu proves it

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Practical information