The AYALA SquareMeal Female Chef of the Year Series 2026: Nieves Barragán Mohacho

London’s restaurant hype cycle is a hungry beast, chewing through 'it' spots every season. Occasionally, though, something arrives that is so transcendant, the hype never seems to die. In 2025, that restaurant was Legado - the second restaurant from acclaimed Spanish chef Nieves Barragán.

The room unfurls as we walk in - tall and handsome, drenched in morning light that makes Legado look more like Las Palmas than London. Above us, a procession of skylights stretches across the ceiling; below, a swirl of terracotta tiles, sage banquettes, and potted palms. We're still settling in when Nieves comes bounding down the stairs - a whirlwind of effervescent energy, hugging staff while simultaneously knotting her apron strings.

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'My eyes are awful today - hayfever!’ she gasps, gesturing to the sunshine pouring onto the front terrace. The clocks have jumped forwards to reveal the first real day of spring, and while the light shows Legado at its full, Mediterranean power, it’s clearly playing havoc with the chef’s sinuses.

Legado means 'legacy' in Spanish. It’s an apt title for a chef who has fundamentally re-engineered the way this city eats. In February 2026, Barragán secured a Michelin star here, doubling up on the star she holds at her other hit, Sabor. It places her in rarified air: alongside Clare Smyth, she is one of only two female chefs in the country to hold stars at multiple establishments.

Starting at the bottom

Long before the accolades, Nieves was just a five year old girl in a Basque market. In the Barragán household - as in any self-respecting Basque family - food was life. The day was a rolling dialogue - breakfast was for discussing lunch; lunch was for debating dinner; and the cycle continues.

'My mum used to take me to the market when she went shopping,' she recalls. 'She was always teaching me how to understand ingredients - how to tell if fish is fresh by looking at the eyes, or if fruits and vegetables are ripe.' Back then, it was just a game - a playful hour of mother-daughter bonding time spent in Bilbao’s colourful markets, but it gave Nieves a foundation that would become a career.

Despite this immersion, Nieves didn't initially see herself as a chef. At 19, she was a graphic design student who spent her weekends volunteering for the Red Cross and grilling ribs on camping trips. 'I didn’t know what I wanted,' she says with a shrug. 'But I always liked cooking. I was very hands-on.'

From this vacuum of professional experience came a decision of pure, chaotic ambition. She decided she would learn classical French cooking with one of London’s most formidable chefs: Nico Ladenis, of three Michelin-starred Chez Nico, and sister bistro Simply Nico. She spoke no English, less French, and had never worked a professional service in her life.

'I was going to try it for a year and see what happened,' she says matter-of-factly, as though not realising quite how mad that sounds, 'and it changed my life.'

The reality check was immediate. She couldn't communicate with the brigade at Simply Nico, so Ladenis demoted her to kitchen porter on day one. Most would have walked, or headed back to the safety of Bilbao, but Nieves became a sponge.

'Every day was new languages, new techniques, new everything, but I loved the challenge,’ she says. She scrubbed pots, peeled potatoes and washed salad leaves. She spent so much time in the heat of the kitchen that, for a while, she spoke more French than English.

After three years of climbing the ranks and working all the sections, Ladenis’ hard-working kitchen had revealed Barragán as a serious talent, and new suitors came calling. Sam and Eddie Hart, two brothers returning from Barcelona with dreams of a Spanish revolution, had heard whispers of a talented Basque chef cooking French food. They recruited her as sous chef for Fino, and then, in the mid-2000s, they launched Barrafina.

'I don’t understand why kitchens used to be underground. It’s a magical thing to bring guests into the kitchen.'

It’s easy to forget now, in an era of chef's tables and counter dining, how radical Barrafina was. Until now, London fine dining had been a hushed, subterranean affair - a domain of starched tablecloths and invisible chefs, hidden in the depths behind swinging silver doors.

Nieves changed that. She pulled back the curtain, inviting guests to sit inches from the fire, to chat with chefs and watch tortillas being made to order. Barrafina was so good, Londoners were waiting for an hour on a Soho pavement for a stool. 'There was nothing like it,' she says. 'Nobody was doing fresh tapas like that. I think that’s why people loved it.'

It wasn’t just the food that made Barrafina special - there was an authenticity and energy to it that Londoners couldn't get enough of. 'I always say if you can see, you can hear, and you can smell, you have the three magical keys to a restaurant,' she explains, her hayfever momentarily forgotten. 'The reaction from the guest is fun for the chef. I don’t understand why kitchens used to be underground. It’s a magical thing to bring guests into the kitchen.'

If Barrafina was the blueprint, Nieves’ would later put her manifesto into action with her own restaurants. First came Sabor - a buzzy, split level temple to regional Spanish gastronomy. Downstairs, a walk-in only tapas bar serves up frosty pints of Estrella alongside one of London’s best sherry lists, and hundreds of tortillas a day. Upstairs, ‘El Asador’ is a sit down affair, honouring the culinary traditions of Castile and Galicia with roasted suckling pigs, milk-fed lamb shoulder and Galician octopus, cooked in roaring wood-fired ovens behind a gleaming marble counter.

‘It needs to be honest. It needs to be unique. It needs to be fun. Those are the ingredients of happiness.’

Legado, too, combines a walk-in tapas space with a more classic restaurant. What defines both is the feeling when you walk in. ‘You can see the kitchen, smell the roasting, hear the buzz of the restaurant,’ Nieves says. ‘It’s magical, it makes you feel good!’ It’s as close to San Sebastian as you'll get in Shoreditch.

Opening Legado was, she says, the hardest thing she’s ever done. The expectation was fever-pitch, and the stakes were higher because the vision was more personal. Every detail - from the Segovian sgraffito patterns on the walls to the wrought iron ‘Spanish balcony’ overlooking the dining room - was hand-picked by Nieves. Her reputation is such that the prospect of a Michelin star hung over the team, and even though the awards themselves are not important, she was desperate for her team to be recognised. 'I'm super proud for them,' she says. 'I was nervous that maybe it wouldn't happen. You want your team to be recognised because they put so much work into Legado, just like Sabor.'

She has poured herself into this restaurant, and that, perhaps, is the point of the name. Legado reflects everything that has brought Nieves to this point: it's her Basque upbringing; grilling on camping trips; exploring markets with her mother. It has the precision of Michelin-starred French cookery, and the sensory joy of Spanish tapas bars. It is, like Nieves, definitively Spanish, but recognisably London. Her rules for the restaurant are simple: ‘It needs to be honest. It needs to be unique. It needs to be fun. Those are the ingredients of happiness.’

Legacy is something we often talk about in the closing chapters, but for all its success, Legado feels like a story still being written, not one coming to an end. Nieves has the same energy, the same earnest determination and grit that carried her from Bilbao to London some thirty years ago. She’s still behind the pass at Legado or Sabor most days of the week - prepping with her team, tasting, mentoring, chatting to guests as they come in and sit at the counter, eyes wide with anticipation.

London will, inevitably, move on. The city’s appetite for the next big thing will remain insatiable. But the city's food scene cannot survive on novelty alone, and restaurants like Legado are the pillars that everyone else clings to, because they’re built on something deeper and more fundamental - on feeling, craft, emotion, and honesty. Chefs like Nieves are rare, and vital, because they connect us to something real. 

As she slips back into the kitchen, we're still thinking about that simple mantra: honest, unique, fun. It sounds disarmingly straightforward for a chef with two Michelin stars, but maybe that’s the secret - stripping things back until only the essential remains. At Legado, that philosophy isn’t just for show, it’s something you feel from the moment you walk-in, to the moment you leave. If that's Nieves' true legacy to London, the city is all the better for it.

Nieves' perfect match

The dish: Arroz campero with roasted Iberico pork

Why it works: ‘The wine is light, creamy, and very citrusy, and that’s a perfect match for the Arroz Campero - it works with the creamy texture of the rice, and the lemon zest and juice matches the citrus character of the wine. The bubbles help to lift everything, so it should feel light and fun to eat - perfect for a sunny day!’

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 a few previous interviews, including last year's Female Chef of the Year Amber Francis, as well as rising stars like Abby Lee, Ruth Hansom, and Sarah Hayward.