Nando’s is a restaurant with an identity crisis. Founded in South Africa by Portuguese immigrants, it serves a unique brand of chicken with a distinctive Mozambican influence.
Though it’s a bit pricier than your typical American fast-food joint, this new Dupont Circle eatery is a nice change of pace from the average buttoned-up Georgetown establishment.
Nando’s is South Africa’s response to Kentucky Fried Chicken, offering delicious but not particularly healthy fast food chicken. While the menu presents a number of options, wraps, sandwiches, salads and chicken livers, the stars of the show are the quarter, half, and whole chickens. These are marinated in a sauce made of piri-piri (a spicy East African pepper) and then grilled.
Along with the chicken you can order more conventional fast food sides (fries, coleslaw, corn on the cob) as well as more unconventional Portuguese options, like a butternut squash or chicken liver and feta salad.
I ordered the half chicken meal, which was a thoroughly filling plate. The meat was moist, marinated, and literally finger lickin’ good. Leave your health-consciousness at home: the fatty, spicy, grilled skin of the chicken, dripping with piri-piri sauce, is perhaps the best part.
Nando’s prides itself on the piri-piri sauce, which is central to the deliciousness. Not only does Nando’s generously coat its chickens, but you are also given a selection of about five or six sauces to bring to the table, from the default piri-piri sauce (in variations of medium, hot and extreme heat) to garlic or creamy sauces. Be sure to sample each one, but brace yourself before sticking anything in your mouth with even a drop of the extreme sauce.
The sauces make up for the disappointing side dishes. My coleslaw was underwhelming and almost tasteless, but a few healthy squirts of the garden herb piri-piri sauce improved it considerably. If you want to be frugal you could skip the sides, but the chickens tend to be small.
Nando’s seems uncertain whether it wants to be a fast food restaurant or a slightly more classy sit-down establishment. I had to wait to be seated, only for the waiter who eventually seated me to direct me to the line for the cashier, who took my order. This culinary schizophrenia carries over into the pricing, with a standard quarter chicken, two sides and a drink costing nearly $11 and prices ranging higher if you want more than the basics. If you don’t mind paying a little more for your greasy fast food fix, then Nando’s serves some of D.C.’s best.
