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07 Sept 2025
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07 Sept 2025
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Yvonne Kathrein from the Poacher Restaurant with the award. Pic: Poacher Restaurant/Facebookram
Mayo chef Yvonne Kathrein from the Poacher Restaurant in Ballina has been recognised with the Irish Restaurant Award 2025 in the category 'Best Chef - Connaught'.
"It's an incredible feeling. I'm very grateful for this award and see it as recognition for the hard work of my entire team," Kathrein said, speaking to The Mayo News after the awards ceremony.
"It's nice to receive such a recognition, but for me the greatest confirmation is when the guests are satisfied. This award is the icing on the cake."
The award will be proudly presented in the entrance area as 'a symbol of quality, passion and genuine hospitality', Kathrein stated.
Together with her husband Daniel, she opened her own restaurant five years ago in the middle of the Covid turmoil.
'I'm happy to share my love for food' she said in a recent Mayo News interview. By foraging, Kathrein puts in a huge amount of effort to source local ingredients: "I gather seaweed, herbs, a lot of mushrooms right now, wild garlic as well. And we have our own polytunnel where we grow vegetables for our dishes."
The restaurant's logo shows a deer and a salmon, the perfect amalgamation of Yvonne's hunting background in Austria and the wild salmon tradition in the River Moy area, which is also known as the Salmon Capital of Ireland.
READ: Multi million euro boost for high-flying Mayo airport
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