The Best Places to Eat Near Landline, by the Record
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Rank 1. Landline
Modern New American
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A deconstructed fish pie, the local beef, the cocktail bar you can stop at or stay in: Mulcahys has been woven into Kenmare's social fabric long enough that the locals treat it like a living room with better wine. It's a full-service restaurant with a warm, lively room where the cooking leans classic and the seafood comes straight from Kerry waters. The kind of place where you sit down for one course and surface three hours later.
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Shelves stacked with wine, mead, and jars of things quietly fermenting set the mood before you've even sat down. Chestnut is a small, intimate tasting-menu restaurant in Ballydehob that holds a Michelin star and takes West Cork produce seriously, from local duck to the smaller growers behind the wine pairings. The kitchen makes its own juices and cordials for those skipping wine, which is a thoughtful touch rather than an afterthought.
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Rank 4. dede
Turkish
A two-Michelin-starred restaurant in a West Cork customs house, where Ahmet Dede threads Turkish spicing through Irish coastal produce with enough restraint that both sides of the equation stay audible. The içli köfte, a street-food staple, arrives in a form that makes you wonder what the original was reaching for. The room is warm, the brigade proud, and the whole operation feels less like a concept than a conversation between two places.
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Rank 5. Baba’de
Turkish
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Rank 6. Solas
Spanish
Spanish cooking made with Dingle's own catch and Kerry produce is the premise at this small, rustic restaurant on the harbor street of one of Ireland's most colorful little towns. The chef traveled through Spain before bringing those flavors home, and the menu sits close to the Spanish originals without pretending the Atlantic isn't right outside. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and the prices stay honest. Service runs warm rather than formal.
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Rank 7. Adrift
Seafood
The dining room sits on the ground floor of Dunmore House Hotel, and the windows line up almost perfectly with Clonakilty Bay. This is a seafood restaurant in the full coastal sense, with lobster pulled from nearby Galley Head waters and vegetables grown in the hotel's own organic kitchen garden. The cooking is unfussy and direct, which turns out to be the right call when the ingredients are making this much of an argument for themselves.