From the PM down, the UK loves Nando’s

LONDON: Forget the National Health Service, tax cuts or TV debates. The way to win British people’s hearts at the next election is through their stomachs.

When David Cameron told a youth radio station this week he’d like to take world leaders to lunch at South African fast food chain Nando’s — rather than a Gordon Ramsay restaurant — he knew what he was talking about.

Not only has he visited a Bristol outlet of Nando’s — the fast food chicken chain that’s spreading across the country — but he also knows that the restaurant crosses class, political and ethnic divisions.

Whoever gets the Nando’s vote at the election will sweep the nation. There are 333 Nando’s outlets in Britain; 1 000 in all, in 35 countries.

But Nando’s is big in the US too. When US president Barack Obama spoke at UCT in 2013, he said of the chain: “In America, we see the reach of your culture – we’ve got a Nando’s a couple of blocks from the White House.”

What is the special ingredient that explains the chain’s extraordinary success? The literal answer is its peri- peri sauce. Peri-peri – Swahili for “pepper-pepper” – originally comes from Mozambique, where the sauce was adopted by Portuguese colonials.

The restaurant’s chickens – fresh, never frozen – are trimmed of fat, marinated overnight, and regularly basted with the peri-peri sauce while being flame grilled.

It isn’t just the peri- peri sauce, though. When it opened in Britain in 1992, Nando’s hit the sweet spot of high street dining through a combination of luck and hard-headed analysis of how to make money in the restaurant trade.

First – price. Nando’s is a little more expensive than McDonald’s or KFC, but healthier, and far cheaper than any fancy restaurant. Four boneless, flame- grilled chicken thighs, plus rice and salad, is yours for £7.30 (R125).

On top of that, you get much more of a restaurant feel than the usual fast-food chains. A waiter brings you your food, with china plates and proper knives and forks.

Service is extremely quick – crucial in our I- want- it- now culture; handy, too, for harassed parents with demanding children.

There is variety on the menu: you can choose how spicy you want your chicken and there are other dishes: veggie burgers, steak rolls and different salads.

But on the whole, the only big choices customers make are the size and type of the chicken portion – quarters, halves, wholes, butterfly breasts, thighs, legs, wings, chicken livers and chicken burgers – and the sauce they want.

The chicken isn’t quite fully free-range, but it is “Red Tractor” standard, which means it is British and approved by independent inspectors. Some outlets are franchised; others directly owned by the company.

It’s a formula that has conquered the nation: from the prime minister to Prince Harry, who’s been seen in the Nando’s in Fulham.

The Nando’s marketing is shrewd. The armed forces, NHS workers, policemen and firemen get a 20 percent discount. – Daily Mail