The AYALA SquareMeal Female Chef of the Year Series 2026: Maria Bradford

‘I’ve had Sierra Leoneans come in here and literally burst into tears,’ says Maria Bradford, the chef-owner of Sierra Leonean restaurant Shwen Shwen in Sevenoaks. She’s referring to the happy sort, of course. Her debut restaurant is an ode to her homeland: rich terracotta walls that evoke the ruddy tones of Sierra Leonean mud, beautiful, printed fabrics and furniture upholstered in bold West African textiles.

Shwen Shwen is Maria’s vivid culinary dream, and long before you eat the food, diners are transported to the coast of West Africa through warmth and colour. But beneath it all is an ambition that transcends the food.

Champagne AYALA: Celebrating over 160 years of history, Champagne AYALA was one of the original twenty-six Grandes Marques Champagne Houses. The House received a Royal Warrant in 1908 and became a part of the Bollinger family in 2005. With its longstanding commitment to the restaurant industry, Champagne AYALA is known for its chardonnay driven, low-dosage wines, crafted with precision and delicacy on a boutique scale. These wines are the ultimate epicurean pairing, it’s no wonder they have been served in the UK for over 100 years in many of London’s most prestigious establishments.

Moving to the UK when she was just a teenager ignited her desire to change the way people perceive her home. ‘I quickly realised the perception that I had of Sierra Leone is not the perception that other people had. I knew this fun-loving, amazing place that I grew up in where I have all my friends and family. People have a perception of a really poor, deprived place that nobody wants to go to.’

From that disparity came a desire to teach people about her heritage - and food was her vehicle of choice. ‘I wanted to show a different side to Sierra Leone, and I think that’s what has driven this throughout.’

Early life

Growing up in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, food and family were two sides of the same coin. The household was always busy - people coming and going, cousins dropping in, neighbours who were practically family - and she recalls entire weekends spent in the kitchen prepping meals with her mother. ‘I don’t really remember any weekend where it didn’t feel like something was happening. It was a busy household, and they always revolved around food.’

She remembers finding it fascinating visiting markets with her mother and grandmother, interacting with produce, tasting and developing a connection to food that would stay with her for years to come. But kitchens were domestic places, and her path to becoming a chef wasn’t a reality she knew existed yet.

‘Nobody in Sierra Leone raises their child thinking, “Oh, you’re going to be a chef,” or “You’re going to be in a kitchen,” or “You’re going to work in hospitality.” It’s just not a career path that anyone advises their child towards,’ she explains.

Moving to the UK

At 17, her life took an abrupt turn. Maria moved to England to do her A-levels and attend university, but the decision happened fast, and the transition from Sierra Leone to Sevenoaks was stark to say the least. There wasn’t even time to say goodbye.

One of the most challenging things she remembers is the British weather. ‘The idea of cold is something that one does not prepare your mind for. Even though you know it’s cold, until you experience it, you don’t really know what cold is,’ she says.

In that first year, everything was ‘a shock’ to her, including her one great love: the food. She was used to going to the market, seeing, touching, smelling the produce, but in the UK, that connection was lost. Avocados looked small compared to the huge ones at home. Bananas were yellow, not green. Strawberries were a complete novelty. Even peanut butter tasted bad. ‘Buying peanut butter from a supermarket and eating it was the most disappointing thing ever,’ she says.

‘Peanut butter is a huge thing in Sierra Leone - we put it in everything. You toast the peanuts, you take it to the market, they grind it for you, and that’s the peanut butter that I knew.’

’We’re very unapologetic about it because both places are home to me. And I think both things can work together without disrespecting the foundation.’

Food, once so familiar and grounding, now alienated her. ‘I became obsessed with finding what Sierra Leone food is and flavours I was familiar with. You don’t realise really how much food makes you happy and reminds you of people that are close to you until you’re removed from it.’

At the beginning, searching for the flavours from her home was just that, a way to reconnect with her heritage through food. But what started as a way to combat home sickness soon became something more. As she spoke to people, the more she understood how distorted people’s view of Sierra Leone was in the UK. Something had to change.

‘I want people to think about Sierra Leone in a positive light rather than the negative light people often use, because it hurts. When people talk negatively about it, it feels very personal. I wouldn’t want anyone talking about somewhere I love that way.’

Culinary discovery

The start of Maria's career looked very different to how it does now. After university, she qualified as an accountant and spent 10 years doing a corporate 9-to-5, but food permeated every spare second of her time. She spent evenings cooking traditional Sierra Leonean dishes for her colleagues, friends and family, and on weekends she’d be up bright and early, selling her homemade chilli sauce at local Kentish markets. Anyone who spent two seconds with Maria could see that food was more than just a hobby, and no one saw that more clearly than her husband.

In 2015, he bought her a camera and a food photography course at Leith’s Culinary School as a Christmas present. It turned out to be more than a thoughtful gift. While she was there, she noticed students in chef’s whites cooking in the kitchen downstairs. Without a second thought, she sauntered straight up to them and asked what they were doing.

‘They said, “Oh yeah, it’s a culinary school.’’ I was like, “Really? How does one enroll? Sign me up.’’ And that was it. ‘I booked a meeting with the principal the following day and enrolled myself’.

Food was an obsession for Maria at that point, but she knew she wanted to take on some formal training to give her the confidence to turn it into a real career. ‘I’m African - we feel like we have to get an education for everything,’ she laughs. ‘I felt like I couldn’t call myself a chef or do food properly if I hadn’t done it professionally.’

The cooking style at Leith’s is very refined and understated – a major departure from the bold, spice-heavy cooking of her home - but learning to cook classically gave her even more confidence in the traditional techniques she’d learned as a child. ‘The core of African cooking - the foundations, the sauces, what you do from the start - it’s the same foundation when you go into French classical cooking.’

Building flavour, creating texture, spending hours cooking ingredients slowly to increase their intensity. Those lessons had already been baked into her psychology as a young child. Culinary school just taught her why she had learned them in the first place.

Opening Shwen Shwen

Post-culinary degree, Maria was approached by a publisher to write what would become Sweet Salone, a cookbook dedicated to Sierra Leonean cuisine. She spent two years researching and refining recipes, turning her home into a test kitchen, and reconnecting with her food, heritage and culture. It was the first iteration of Shwen Shwen almost, and post-book, one question tugged at her mind: 'Do I take the bold step and bring the cookbook alive?'.

The biggest battle was yet to come. Sierra Leonean cuisine is hugely underrepresented in the UK, let alone little old Sevenoaks, and choosing a largely non-diverse city for her debut restaurant meant there were barriers built in from the start. ‘When we started, the idea of a Sierra Leonean restaurant in Sevenoaks was almost laughable to quite a lot of people,’ she says.

Part of that was down to ignorance around the cuisine and its culture. ‘I would say most people don’t really know what [Sierra Leonean food] is,’ she says. ‘When people think about African food, they immediately think chilli and heavy food,’ she explains, citing a lack of vegetables and a heavy reliance on meat as further misconceptions. ‘But it depends where in Africa you’re from,’ she points out.

This perception of West Africa as one country is part of the problem, and at Shwen Shwen, she aims to shift the way African food is perceived. The foundations are Sierra Leonean - the slow-cooked sauces, the bold, layered flavours, even many of the ingredients - but the menu is in dialogue with its surroundings, drawing on Kent produce and British seasons to inform the menu.

‘The flavours are Sierra Leonean, the foundations are traditional, but we’re not shy about expressing ourselves using local Kent produce,’ she explains. ’We’re very unapologetic about it because both places are home to me. And I think both things can work together without disrespecting the foundation.’

This hybrid approach is what sets Shwen Shwen apart. Her food is balanced, nuanced and, as her guests often tell her, surprisingly light. You’ll find short rib cooked in peanuts and coconut on the menu, as well as things like shito, hispi cabbage and jute rice.

‘The flavours are Sierra Leonean, the foundations are traditional, but we’re not shy about expressing ourselves using local Kent produce.'

The result has been met with huge praise. In February 2026, she won Michelin’s Opening of the Year, in the same month that the restaurant was awarded a Bib Gourmand. Shwen Shwen had barely been open a year, but winning those two accolades has put the restaurant, and the food of Sierra Leone, on the map in a big way. Even she's suprised at the impact her restaurant has had. 

‘When Shwen Shwen was called, I was so shocked,' she says, looking back at Michelin's award ceremony earlier this year. 'They didn’t tell us before, so the reaction was genuine. When they started saying “Sevenoaks,” I thought they meant another restaurant!’.

Shwen Shwen’s rise has been swift, but its foundations have been taking root since Maria was a young girl, from a childhood spent at local markets, to supermarket trips in her teens, to cooking traditional dishes for friends and family, and eventually completing her classical training.

Winning big at Michelin has given her a well-deserved confidence boost. She muses at the idea of winning a Michelin star one day, but not at the expense of authenticity to her country. That's non-negotiable. ‘I don’t want to win it because I’ve made some dainty European-looking dish,' she says. 'I want to win it because I’m doing fish wrapped in banana leaf - for doing food that’s authentic to me and authentic to Sierra Leone.’ 

Maria's perfect match for AYALA's Le Blanc de Blancs A/18

The dish: Cod with palm butter and jute rice

Why it works: 'I’ve paired Ayala's Le Blanc de Blancs Champagne with our cod and palm butter sauce dish. The creamy 100% chardonnay blend, with its notes of blood orange, jasmine and honey pairs beautifully with the rich, savoury and naturally nutty flavour of the palm butter, making for an elegant and sophisticated match.'

Read more about the SquareMeal AYALA Female Chef of the Year Award here, with more information on the award, the judges, and a rundown of previous winners. Or, check out our interview with shortlisted chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho, who opens up about why opening Legado was the hardest thing she's ever done.