Brunel's Restaurant

Paul Cunningham opened Brunel's in 2014, first in rooms above the Anchor Bar, then in 2017 in a purpose-built dining room on Downs Road, a few streets back from the Newcastle seafront. It cooks a modern European menu built on local sourcing, with the Mourne Mountains filling the windows behind the town. The kitchen keeps to a Thursday-to-Sunday week of lunch and dinner sittings. In a resort town with plenty of passing trade, it has held to being a proper restaurant rather than a holiday cafeteria — the reason locals book it for the occasions that matter.