Trailblazer of the Year

When Maria Bradford told her friends and family she was opening a West African restaurant with a leaning towards that of Sierra Leone in the Kent town of Sevenoaks - and that she was going to pour her entire life savings into it, including re-mortgaging her house - she was warned off on the grounds that it was not a very diverse place. Thankfully she ignored them and thus Shwen Shwen, one of the most exciting restaurants to open in years, came into being.

What makes Shwen Shwen such an interesting restaurant, and Bradford such a worthy winner of this trailblazer award, is that not only has she eschewed the more cosmopolitan clientele of London for her restaurant but that she is bringing something genuinely new to the table. Translated as 'fancy fancy', Shwen Swen doesn't serve traditional food but rather a West African fusion, blending the authentic, such as its palm butter sauce, with less authentic ingredients, such as bone marrow. The menu comprises small plates and sharing dishes, because in Sierra Leone people eat communally. "As West African people, it's easy to feel our food and culture are being watered down so we're wary of people 'messing' with it," she says. "Instead, I do it in a way that helps people enjoy and understand it. Merging my two heritages is really important to me."

Bradford was born in Sierra Leone and came to the UK as a teenager to study. She ended up doing an accounting and finance degree and worked in various roles for about a decade until she followed her true love of food by studying at Leith School of Food and Wine. This led to a book deal, with Bradford penning Sweet Salone, a recipe book that also tells the story of Sierra Leone, and then to opening her own restaurant. "I always talked about the food, because Sierra Leone is associated with a lot of very negative things like war and Ebola. Food became a way for me to diffuse those difficult conversations and instead talk about something more exciting and positive," she says.

It is now about Bradford's food that people are talking so enthusiastically, the chef having planted the food of her home country firmly into the restaurant scene. With Shwen Shwen Bradford has shown that you don't need to go along traditional lines to make an impact, just passion, belief, skill and a lot of drive. And the guts to risk it all for what you believe in.