Derry restaurant wins prestigious award for second time

A Derry restaurant has won a prestigious award for a second time.

Mekong won the YesChef Ireland Awards 2024 ‘World Food Restaurant of the Year’ award at this month celebration of the Irish hospitality industry, in Dundalk.

The process to receive the award involved initially being nominated before being adjudged by the YesChef judges, who visit the restaurant without declaring themselves.

The judges then nominate restaurants on merit for categories selected by the judges and decide which of those restaurants nominated are most deserving of an award.

Mekong, which serves a Thai/Vietnamese style menu, which has been adapted to suit the Derry taste buds.

The award, which covers foods from outside of Europe such as Asian, Indian, Latin American and American style food establishments had a winner from each province, with the Derry establishment being awarded the best overall in Ireland.

Head chef, Stephen Forbes, said: “We’re probably the only restaurant in the city that doesn’t serve chips, but we’re still kept busy, which shows the appetite is there for this kind of food.

“The ethos at the start was to keep it totally authentic, but there are a few flavour profiles that people just can’t get their head around.

“All the recipes are still authentic though, we make all our own curries and pastes in house, and we are cooking everything the traditional way, we just reduce a bit of heat to match the palette here.

“I used to work in Pier 49, and whenever that was closing down, I decided to buy a food truck. I’d been travelling back and forth to Thailand and Vietnam already and just kind of thought the town doesn’t have anything like the food they make out there.

“So that was seven years ago, when I started the truck, and I wasn’t nine months into that when the Nerve Centre invited me in to fill their empty space, that used to be a café. So we’ve been going there for about five or six years now.

“Pad Thai noodles and panang curry are our most popular dishes.

“We get all our produce locally sourced as much as possible, there are certain things that we can’t get locally because of the climate, like lemongrass. But everything else is local, like our fish is from Greencastle and all our meats are local.

“We’re all buzzing we got the award. Everyone has worked hard for this, from front of house to the chefs, everyone is important and puts their work in. This award has gone to everyone that works here, it’s a good accolade.

“It’s even better to win it now than the first time we won it five years ago. It means more to us now, because we feel like we have been getting better at what we do, so it’s good to win the award again and have that recognition.”