Nieves Barragán Mohacho: CODE Hospitality’s Woman of the Year 2026
Published 13 April 2026
By Hilary Armstrong
At Legado in Shoreditch, at Sabor in Mayfair, Bilbao-born chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho channels three decades of graft, knowledge and passion into two of London’s biggest and boldest restaurants. A chef at the height of her powers, her cooking is fearless, personal and driven by absolute self-belief.
Legado, all double-height, 440 square metres of it, crafted in muscular cast iron, raw brick, heavy wood and painted tiles, is a big, loud, buzzy restaurant in Shoreditch. With 82 covers, it serves around 250 diners a day from its vast open kitchen fitted with two hand-built wood-fired ovens from Segovia, a two-tier charcoal Josper, and a battery of rice pans and fryers. It’s one of the most ambitious restaurants London has seen in years and it’s the work of Nieves Barragán Mohacho, CODE’s Woman of the Year 2026.
“The last year has been very special,” says Barragán who turned 50 in August, the month Legado opened. “I wanted to open this restaurant a few years ago. It’s been on my mind. I’ve been planning it for a few years.”
You could say Legado – the name means ‘legacy’ – has been 30 years, if not longer, in the making. Bilbao-born Barragán came to the UK at 20, rudderless. “I was confused when I was in Spain. That’s why I came here,” she says. She had considered a number of careers: graphic design, early years education, something in sport, but had always loved to cook and could, famously, roast chicken by the age of seven. She was, she says, always “the cheffy one” packing the camping gas when she went camping with her friends. She relished Saturday mornings to the market where her mother, a talented and devoted home cook, who taught her how to check the eyes of a fish, and gauge the ripeness of fruit. “My mum was a cook and my grandma as well. I was always cooking for fun with my mum but to be a chef is a different thing. I decided to come to London to understand if I really wanted to be a chef.”
By a stroke of luck, she landed at a two Michelin star, Simply Nico, the late Nico Ladenis’ French restaurant in Pimlico. “I was the only woman; the only Spanish; I couldn’t speak any English, any French. The chef said to me “I’m going to put you in the KP area, peeling potatoes, peeling onions, and then we see.” Three months later, he put me in the salad section and that was the beginning.” It’s there, she says, she learned what passion and discipline it took to succeed in a professional kitchen. “From beginning to the end, it was super exciting. I was like a sponge. I worked very hard but I don’t regret it because I’m not sure if I didn’t get to that restaurant, I don’t know what I would be right now.”
From Simply Nico, Barragán went on to lead the kitchen at Sam and Eddie Hart’s Fino in 2003, then opened a succession of Barrafina tapas bars with them, winning a Michelin star – the first for a Spanish restaurant in the UK – at the Dean Street restaurant in 2013. She is now chef director of Sabor in Mayfair and Legado in Shoreditch, both with Michelin stars. Her star for Legado came in February this year, just five months after opening, making Barragán just one of the two women awarded this year. She’s currently one of only eight to hold a star in the UK right now.
How did winning the star feel? “I don’t put these things in my head,” she says. “Obviously it’s an amazing recognition. It’s super important for us, for the team, that all the hard work that we’re doing is recognised but, because we are so busy, I like to have my head down and just carry on. I love to come here. I love to spend time with my team. I put a lot of effort every day. I still have the same passion that I had 20 years ago. Having this Michelin star is amazing but that means you need to be [on your toes even more] because you cannot make mistakes.”
What does she still hope to achieve? “I’ve always got goals. That’s what I like. I always like to have a project. This is part of Nieves, always trying to make things that are missing in London, or goals I always wanted to do. I’m a creative person so I have already a few things in mind. When it’s going to be? Not sure! But I think it keeps you driven and it’s super important for the team telling them that maybe next year or in two years, we’re going to do a different project.”
For now, her team has its work cut out with Legado’s vast 55-dish menu. Barragán dismisses the suggestion that it is ambitious. “I don’t call it a big menu. You know why? Legado is nose-to-tail. I like to use every single part of animals. I learned that from my mum. We used to cook brains, sweetbreads, lamb livers… I think it’s very important as a chef to use every single cut from the animal. Also, because it’s a big kitchen there are ten sections. If I have only one dish per section, the chef will say “Nieves, it’s too boring!”. You can come every day for lunch and dinner and you’re always going to have something different.”
Her menu, her restaurant, reflect less her own legacy than the legacy others have left on her. It’s the crystallisation of all the restaurants she’s worked at and opened in London and all the recipes she was taught by her mother and picked up on her travels across Spain. To take one example: her mackerel with jamon dashi. This one goes back to her time at Barrafina and her Soho neighbour, Koya. “I was addicted! I was working every day in Barrafina so, at 11 o’clock, I used to go there to have noodles with dashi. I fell in love with dashis. The mackerel is with the ham because in Navarro, in the north of Spain, there is a typical dish with the mackerel and ham. It all means a lot.” Teaching her team all these dishes, she’s in her element. “I love it. This is the fun part! When you switch off all the problems that you have in the restaurant. I love that.”
Everything she does, she does with unshakeable confidence and unapologetic ambition. “I always believe in myself; I always believe in what I want to cook. I always cook without limits.”
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