We think of it as Portuguese-style chicken but Nando’s signature dish, peri peri chicken, comes from Mozambique. And the chain actually had its beginnings in South Africa. There are links to Portugal though. Monzambique was, for centuries, a Portuguese colony. And the founders of Nando’s were Portugal-born sound engineer, Fernando Duarte and his friend Robert Brozin who, in 1987, bought a Johannesburg restaurant called Chickenland. They renamed it Nando’s after Fernando and set out to build a worldwide business.

The first Portuguese traders arrived in Mozambique in the early 16th century and, so the story goes, discovered the local African birds eye chillies. Over the centuries, Portuguese colonists there and in Angola added their own ingredients including garlic, red wine vinegar, paprika and other European imports creating piri piri (pepper pepper) sauce. The South Africans adopted it, calling it peri peri, and it became a staple in chicken shops and, ultimately, Nando’s.

Two years after acquiring their first chicken shop, Duarte and Brozin had opened two more in South Africa and one in Portugal. Five years after that, they sold to the British Berkely Group and by 2012 the chain had 1000 restaurants worldwide. The first Australian Nando’s, which opened on 1 January 1991 in the Perth suburb of Tuart Hill, was the eighth restaurant in the chain. By 1995, there were eight Australian Nando’s and by 2008 there were 200. But Aussies’ initial enthusiasm for peri peri chicken must have waned over time as by 2024 the number of stores had been reduced to 136, around one-third of which were in Victoria.

Nando’s has been owned by the Enthoven family of South Africa since 2014. Most stores are company-owned, with South Africa and Australia being the only countries with franchisees. And being a Nando’s franchisee is far from a road to riches.  It seems the company is on a mission to wrest back control of its Australian stores. In 2019, many described the hardship they experienced when Nando declined to renew their franchises, often after requiring them to spend large amounts on renovations to maintain the standard of their stores. They described the company as “very cruel”.

It’s difficult to tell how many restaurants Nando’s currently (as of 2024) has worldwide.  According to Statista, there were 893 as of February 2023. And they’re making good money. Also according to Statista:

Nando Group Holding’s revenues hit a high of approximately 1.27 billion British pounds in the financial year ending February 26, 2023, following an increasing trend since 2010. Since then, the only year in which the company experienced a loss in revenue over the previous year was 2021.

I’m apparently well-served for peri-peri chicken as Melbourne, along with London, is the city with the most Nando’s outlets. However, that’s according to a web page that has the Australian store count standing at 24, so it may be well out-of-date. Not to worry. There’s one opening up just across the road from me any day now.