A professional female chef wearing glasses and a chef’s coat, seated at a restaurant table with a red interior background.
Sevenoaks has a new culinary star, Maria Bradford, and she’s redefining West African flavors one plate at a time. Her Sierra Leonean restaurant Shwen Shwen, tucked behind a courtyard in Sevenoaks, Kent, has just been named Opening of the Year by the Michelin Guide, while Bradford herself earned the UK’s Best New Chef award. But beyond the accolades lies a deeper purpose: dismantling lazy stereotypes about African cuisine. Through her cooking, Bradford challenges the notion that African food is simply stodgy or aggressively spiced. At Shwen Shwen, she offers dishes rooted in her upbringing in Freetown, showcasing Sierra Leone’s coastal, plant-forward culinary heritage. Through ingredients like fonio and palm oil, and a balance of seafood, vegetables, and spices, Bradford hopes to show that African cuisines are diverse, nuanced, and worthy of global attention.
Conde Nast Traveler