The AYALA SquareMeal Female Chef of the Year Series 2026: Nikita Pathakji

It has been quite a year for Nikita Pathakji.

First, there was the drama of Great British Menu. After initially missing out on the final by a single point to former Gwen chef Corrin Harrison, she was then drafted at the last minute as his replacement, when he couldn’t make the banquet. Against the odds, her Harry Potter-inspired ‘Draught of Living Death’ - a sensational seared halibut accompanied by Malaysian fish head curry, potato-stuffed chilli, and a fresh sambal salad - was voted as the standout course of the night, making her an improbable 2026 GBM Champion of Champions.

Then, the day after that final episode of Great British Menu aired, Nikita went on Saturday Kitchen and announced she was opening a restaurant of her own in two weeks. To anyone watching - us included - it looked like a chef riding a wave of momentum, pivoting fast on the back of good publicity.

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It wasn't. The decision had been made almost a year earlier, in June - the moment she got the call inviting her into the GBM kitchens. Within days, her older sister Isha had booked a sabbatical from her job as a Deloitte consultant. Their mother, Rima - a managing director at Standard Chartered and CIO for Europe - would soon hand in her own notice, leaving a long, successful career in financial services. Neither of them had worked a day in hospitality. Neither had any idea, yet, whether Nikita would even make it past the first round of filming.

‘They took the craziest leap of faith in me,’ Nikita says now, sitting in MAAI, the Clapham restaurant the trio opened together in May 2026. ‘They thought I'd do well enough, I guess.’ Or, they already knew something that the rest of us are just finding out - that Pathakji is a generational star on the rise.

The instinct to bet on Nikita didn't start with Great British Menu. It goes back to a phone call, years earlier, when Nikita was still sitting her A-levels and preparing university applications. Emerging shell-shocked from a nightmare chemistry test, a teenage Nikita phoned Isha - then suffering through her own chemical engineering degree - for a pep talk. Isha, who happened to be tucking into a batch of homemade brownies Nikita had posted her, didn't hesitate: ‘Just don't do it! It's really expensive and really hard. Do something that you love.’

Isha managed to talk Nikita out of university that day. A decade later, it would be Isha quitting her corporate job to build a restaurant with her younger sister.

Do something that you love

Nikita's route to that trust was neither fast nor easy - it came via years of hard work in some very tough kitchens. She skipped full-time culinary college in favour of an apprenticeship split between Westminster Kingsway and The Lanesborough, wanting to ‘get my hands dirty rather than doing theory.’ She talked her way into the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant, Céleste, not long after it won its star, and from there, she stacked her CV with heavy hitters - Bibendum, Core by Clare Smyth, and Kitchen W8.

While most chefs relentlessly chase stars, Nikita deliberately stepped back down the Michelin ladder to find a style of cooking she actually loved. She traded the high-strung precision of three-star dining for South Kensington’s one-star Kitchen W8 under Mark Kempson - the chef she credits with shaping her culinary DNA. ‘It just fit much more with what I like to cook, how I like to eat, and the whole attitude to the industry I preferred,’ she says. ‘That was the biggest change in my journey.’

It was at Kitchen W8 that MasterChef came calling, almost by accident - the restaurant received an open invitation email, and Nikita, junior enough that she'd never created her own dish before, applied on a whim after her mother insisted. ‘No one thought I'd be okay on TV,’ she laughs, ‘but Mum would have killed me if I didn't apply.’ She didn’t just survive the spotlight and the cameras - she ended up winning the whole competition.

Great British Menu followed a few years later, and this time, the family didn't wait to see how she'd do. They'd already decided.

‘I've never had this level of trust with front of house, ever.’

With the plan set out, the family moved swiftly and decisively to put it in motion. MAAI’s home in Clapham, formerly a pub called Brooke, wasn't even on the market when Nikita caught wind that the owners might sell. Sitting just five minutes down the road from home, on a gorgeous Clapham neighbourhood corner, it was too good to pass up.

‘It's bigger and more expensive than we wanted, but the location made it a no-brainer,’ Nikita says. Self-funded and unwilling to take on structural building work, the family kept changes largely cosmetic - new paint, a reworked back bar that had previously been floral glass - and opened three weeks after getting the keys. It was, by any normal restaurant timeline, ambitious, but the trio pushed on with united enthusiasm.

Ask Nikita what she expected working alongside her mother and sister in a high-pressure kitchen, and she admits she was braced for conflict. It hasn't materialised where she thought it would.

‘In service, we work so well together, it's actually unbelievable,’ she says. ‘I thought there was going to be a lot more fighting. We still fight, but it's more in between when we're doing admin and getting stressed about the future.’ During service itself, she says, the three of them ‘just lock in’ with a shared goal. ‘I've never had this level of trust with front of house, ever,’ she adds. ‘Having my mum and sister there, I just know that our priorities are totally aligned.’

Our Female Chef of the Year series doesn’t just spotlight what chefs put on the plate; it also celebrates the leadership they show in their kitchens. Nikita traces her own approach back to Mark Kempson - ‘a great teacher’ who nurtures his chefs rather than breaking them. She’s determined that MAAI will be the opposite of some of the kitchens she’s worked in that weren’t nice working environments. ‘It's a job that's based on passion, so you've got to foster that,’ she says, while being careful not to romanticise the difficulty. ‘It’s not easy. There's a lot to be done and it has to be done right.’

Looking around MAAI during a bustling service, it feels as though Isha and Rima’s ‘crazy leap of faith’ wasn’t much of a gamble after all. The rest of the nation might have caught on through a TV screen and an improbable last-minute victory, but her family had already seen the full picture years earlier over batches of homemade brownies.

It’s a rousing testament to the power of family hospitality. Yes, they have a rising star in the kitchen, but MAAI is just as much Rima’s motherly warmth as she darts from table to table, and Isha’s alchemical cocktail making. Among all of London’s glitzy, soulless, mega-budget openings, we should all be glad that there’s room for restaurants powered not by venture capital, but by family faith, shared purpose, and a sisterly nudge to follow what you love.

Nikita's perfect match

The dish: Octopus 'tako yaki' doughnut

Why it works: 'When I was thinking about what to pair with the AYALA Champagne, I knew it would be something fried - one of my all time favourite combos is Champagne and fried chicken! To complement the wonderful bright notes of pear and jasmine from AYALA, my heart went to Japan, and the flavours of takoyaki, with ginger and spring onion, nori and dashi. The Champagne also has lovely pastry notes, which complement the doughnut, and there's enough vibrant acidity to cut through the fattiness - making this combination super moreish!'

To read all about SquareMeal and AYALA's Female Chef of the Year series, including details on judges, previous winners, and of course this year's brilliant shortlist, just hit the link. Or, catch-up on our recent interviews with Maria Bradford of Shwen Shwen, Kim Ratcharoen - head chef of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, and Nieves Barragán Mohacho of Legado and Sabor.