The most talked about new restaurant in Sevenoaks turns one. Shwen Shwen by Maria Bradford on Bank Street has won a Michelin Bib Gourmand and the Opening of the Year award. Here is what the Sierra Leonean restaurant means for the town's dining scene.

The most talked about new restaurant in Sevenoaks is no longer quite so new. Shwen Shwen, the Sierra Leonean restaurant on Bank Street run by chef and author Maria Bradford, opened its doors on 6 June 2025, which means today it marks its first full year in the town. It has been a year that turned a small two floor dining room behind a courtyard into one of the most decorated restaurant openings in the country.

In February 2026 Shwen Shwen was named Opening of the Year in the MICHELIN Guide Great Britain and Ireland, and was awarded a Bib Gourmand, the inspectors’ mark for good quality cooking at a fair price. Both were confirmed at the guide’s awards ceremony at the Convention Centre in Dublin on Monday 9 February 2026, according to The Caterer and KentOnline.

Where it is and what it serves

Shwen Shwen sits at 1-2 Well Court, Bank Street, Sevenoaks, TN13 1UN, set back behind a courtyard terrace and a large maple tree. The dining room runs across two floors, decorated in deep terracotta, mustard and orange-red, with geometric West African kpokpo fabric, a look created by the design studio 20.20 using materials from Dar Leone, as described in The Good Food Guide’s first look.

The cooking is Sierra Leonean and Afro-fusion, built around ingredients such as moringa, fonio, tamarind, egusi, baobab and hibiscus. The menu has run dishes including crispy yam croquettes, octopus with kankankan spice, beef short rib in coconut and groundnut sauce, and a moringa millefeuille, alongside a chef’s selection menu, a wine pairing and a dedicated vegan set menu, per the same Good Food Guide write up. The name comes from the Krio word for “fancy”.

Who is behind it

Maria Bradford grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and learned to cook as a child from her mother and grandmother. After moving to Kent as a teenager she trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine and, in 2017, launched the catering business and supper club that grew into Shwen Shwen, as set out on the restaurant’s own story page. She is the author of the cookbook Sweet Salone: Recipes from the Heart of Sierra Leone.

On the Opening of the Year award, Bradford told reporters at the Dublin ceremony: “We literally represent the underrepresented, which is Sierra Leone,” quoted by The Caterer. When the restaurant first opened she said in its launch announcement: “Shwen Shwen is the realisation of a long-held dream. I want my food to take guests on a journey to experience the vibrant culinary landscape of Sierra Leone,” reported by The Dining Room PR.

What it means for the town

For a town of Sevenoaks’ size, a national restaurant award is rare, and the practical effect is simple: it puts the High Street on the map for people who would not otherwise drive out to eat here. A restaurant that draws bookings from across Kent and London tends to lift the trade around it, from the cafes and shops on Bank Street to the car parks and the station. It also gives the town a genuine destination dining room rather than another chain unit.

If you want to try it, Shwen Shwen takes bookings through its own website. Bib Gourmand restaurants are popular and a year of awards has only sharpened demand, so a table on a Friday or Saturday is worth planning ahead for rather than walking in on the night.

The wider point for anyone tracking the Sevenoaks dining scene is that the town now has a restaurant the rest of the country is talking about. A year on from opening, that is no longer a promise. It is a record.

Sources

Image: “The Black Boy pub, Sevenoaks” by Robin Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Black_Boy_pub,Sevenoaks-geograph.org.uk-_6614213.jpg).