Restaurants in Soledad

If you read Louie’s story, you’ll note that his middle name is Martini and his ex-wives include Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. You’ll also read about his modest childhood in Portofino, Italy, where he frequented the harbors, mingled with fishermen, and dreamed of serving fresh fish at his very own restaurant. This intersection of lightheartedness and a passion for seafood defines Louie Linguini’s—regardless of what’s fact and what’s fiction.

The restaurant occupies a second-story building with a patio that overlooks the blue expanse of Monterey Bay. Fresh seafood pops up in many of the menu's descriptions, no more so than on the restaurant’s signature cioppino, which is a dungeness-crab, clam, mussel, snapper, calamari, and shrimp stew served with a choice of whole crab legs or crabmeat. The kitchen also yields Italian eats such as 12-inch pizzas, spaghetti and housemade meatballs, and linguini with shrimp, artichokes, veggies, and garlicky cream sauce. Fueling each meal is a selection of wines, draft beers, and specialty martinis and mixed drinks.

Originally opened in 1955 as a joint-venture chocolate shop, Em Le’s welcomes visitors into its quaint A-frame dining room with the irresistible scents of fresh pasta, simmering sauces, and seared meats. The eatery is known for its french toast, made with a recipe that has remained unchanged since 1955. The batter-cooked confection is served during breakfast alongside more than 10 savory omelets and pancakes piled with fresh fruit. Guests can snuggle up to the fireplace while they browse a dinner menu of comfort food ranging from spaghetti and meatballs to short ribs served with garlic mashed potatoes and fresh veggies.

At Cantinetta Luca, Chef Jason Balestrieri rolls out handmade pastas, wood-oven-baked pizza, and roasted whole fish. Enhanced by seasonal, local ingredients, his family-style Italian cooking earned Cantinetta Luca a 2012 readers’ award for Best Restaurant in Carmel from Monterey County Weekly. Balestrieri also cures salumi in-house to fill his signature antipasti plates and the display cases of his salumeria next door.

Cantinetta Luca’s interior decor mirrors the Old World-style eats. Exposed brick covers a barrel-vaulted ceiling in one room, and dark-wood rafters crisscross overhead in another. Elsewhere, modern light fixtures cast their glow across contemporary furnishings, chiseled wood, and pillars of string cheese.

Among carved wooden furniture reminiscent of an Alpine chalet, Lugano Swiss Bistro chef André Lengacher anchors checkered tablecloths with Swiss specialties such as lightly breaded schnitzel and creamy fondue. Trompe l’oeil wall murals transport viewers to a picturesque mountain village as a brigade of musicians perform traditional tunes on accordions and violins that harmonize gracefully with opera-trained cuckoo clocks.

Powered by local, organic ingredients and fresh-caught, never-farmed-or-frozen fish and seafood, Flaherty's has been a bastion of sustainability since opening more than 35 years ago. Like the world's slowest traffic light, the menu changes seasonally to reap the most bountiful swimmers and flourishing vegetables. Yet the quality remains the same throughout the year, mostly because the same chef has been preparing Flaherty's dishes since the restaurant's founding, decorating plates with West-Coast oysters, Dungeness crab, and Pacific ahi tuna. While diners troll the tastes of the deep blue, they can sip a bloody mary peppered with chipotle sauce and topped with a prawn or a margarita oyster shooter, served in chilled Patron Silver and fresh lime juice.

Aromas of home-cooked Mexican fare waft through the air at Lopez Restaurante Y Cantina. In the dining room, servers shuttle platters of cheesy enchiladas sidekicked with heaps of beans and rice, as well as tacos crammed with carnitas, chicken, and beef or prepared al pastor style. Throughout the meal, barkeeps churn out frothy margaritas, sudsy beers, and texturally ambiguous wines.