Dede at The Customs House

Dede holds a Michelin star (awarded 2021 at its original Skibbereen site, retained through the 2022 move to The Customs House in Baltimore) and a Green Star for sustainability. Chef-patron Ahmet Dede trained at Mugaritz in the Basque Country and at Mirazur in Menton before landing in West Cork — the Turkish-Cypriot technique translated onto Sherkin oysters, Baltimore cod, and Skibbereen garden vegetables has no equivalent in Ireland.

The Customs House is a stone building on the Baltimore harbour, 90 minutes southwest of Cork city. The dining room seats 30. A single tasting menu runs at €185 per person and changes monthly; a paired wine flight adds €95. Signature dishes rotate around the kitchen's wood-fired oven and an outdoor herb garden that supplies the ferment programme.

Dede's defining dish is the Turkish manti — tiny lamb-filled dumplings served with yogurt, paprika butter, and West Cork garden herbs — a direct reference to his grandmother's Cypriot cooking. The sequence from canapés through to dessert takes 3 hours; lingering over the digestif selection can stretch it to four.

Baltimore is a 90-minute drive from Cork city (N71). Overnight stays at the adjoining Customs House rooms are bookable directly through the restaurant. The village closes down around 22:00, so plan either a late departure or a room upstairs.

Dede is where Cork hosts international clients who have already dined at a Michelin two-star in London or Paris and want something they cannot replicate at home. The Turkish-Irish cooking is genuinely unique, the setting (a stone Customs House on a rural Atlantic harbour) memorable, and the drive from the city signals intent. For proposals, the four-top window table overlooking the harbour is the room's best seat — request it eight weeks out.