Restaurant review: This brilliant Baltimore spot could earn at least one Michelin star
Chef Almet Dede at the Dede restaurant at the Customs House, Baltimore, Co Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan
Having splurged at the outset, summer rummages amongst all that wind and rain in search of a remaining fine day, somehow pulling one out of the bag, and we roll down into Baltimore on a gorgeous, sultry evening. There is a poignant giddiness abroad — one last end-of-season hurrah before facing into an ominously foreboding autumn/winter like few others that have gone before, and even at 6pm on a weekday, the dial is set to ‘party’ as we enter Dede at The Customs House for the first sitting.
Ahmet Dede is the Turkish-born chef who gave James Ellis and Robert Collender’s late, lamented Mews Restaurant — mere yards away — that final push towards a justly deserved Michelin Star. Sadly, Mews closed last year but Dede had fallen hard for Baltimore and West Cork produce, and when Maria Archer offered her newly-purchased and renovated Customs House nearby, their business partnership was born.
The potentially awkward interior is mastered with consummate skill, a cool, tranquil and understated space. The reception area, also housing a deli, heads a long narrow room that flows down to the far end where glass doors open onto a spacious courtyard, with an open wood-fired grill, an integral element in delivering the Turkish side of the bargain in Dede’s proposed Hiberno-Turkish culinary alliance. And al fresco summer afternoon barbecues have been one of the hottest tickets in West Cork.
We begin with dips and bread, craggy rustic sourdough that appears quarried as much as baked — its air-filled crumb, tart and chewy. We smear it with Gloun Cross butter and dips: one, barbecued red pepper and confit garlic; the other, wild mackerel, albacore tuna and lemon. ‘Dips’ is quite the prosaic descriptor for such complex and muscular yet immaculately balanced fare.
Next is Turkish Country Salad with gazpacho — an edible vision. To one side is a crescent of tomatoes topped with petals (marigold, wild cabbage, nasturtium) and three different basils. Tomatoes, both raw and pickled (in basil vinegar), rest on plump cushions of whipped Toonsbridge ricotta and Second Nature rapeseed oil (Ireland’s best rapeseed oil, bar none). Nestling in the crescent’s arc is ‘gazpacho’, a golden, globular ‘yolk’ of gossamer mousse, best described, once tasted, as 'a dream of tomatoes'. The spectrum of flavours and textures achieved is quite remarkable, preternatural empathy with superb produce rather than mere technical skill.
The charred crust of BBQ-blackened tournedos of aged beef encases tender vermillion flesh and a seam of nicotine-yellow fat, swollen, glistening, near-rendered. I realise I am inadvertently closing my eyes at each exquisite mouthful. It is served with roasted cauliflower and a solitary chard leaf, flashed in beef fat, dusted with spice and grated six-year-old Coolea cheese.
There is also a bowl of mashed potato, a silky rich puree of such unctuous divinity that you just know it is laden with the right amount of butter — in other words, ‘too much butter’ — along with rendered, umami-rich beef fat. It is topped with crisped potato ‘lardons’ and chives. I near lick the bowl clean through to Australia. A Barolo (La Tartufaia, Giulia Negri, 2015) of lush dark fruit and incisive tannins was heaven-sent to pair with this particular course.
We finish with deconstructed baklava: shards of Sherkin honey-glazed filo, pistachios, sweet, creamy pistachio ice cream and a pistachio and mascarpone sauce — a delightful and delicious conclusion to a near-perfect meal.
Dede’s ability was so obviously evident in his cooking at Mews though I sometimes wished he’d eschew technical precision for a looser, funkier approach. Though you’ll never, ever describe his cooking as ‘flamboyant’, he is now bringing the instinctual soul of his Turkish culinary heritage to bear on his love affair with hyper-local Irish produce and the terroir of land and sea that surrounds him, delivering fulsomely and from the heart.
Our simple three-courser is a timeless pleasure, but Covid-19 means this kitchen is currently 'cruising'. At full power, Dede could well take us to places we’ve never been, either here or in Turkey, a fusion entirely his own and all the better for it. The last time I reviewed his cooking, I predicted it would earn a Michelin star — once restrictions are lifted, I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t eventually wind up with two.
- Dede At The Customs House Customs House, Baltimore, Co Cork. P81 K291;Â
- Tel: 028-48248;Â
- www.customhousebaltimore.com/dede
- Thursday to Saturday, 6pm-9pm; Sunday, 12.30pm-2pm
