Located on the corner of the Cowley Road and Temple Street, this is your typical Nandos - but with a few extras - first of all it’s on the coolest stretch of pubs, bars and restaurants in town - that is, our well loved multi-cultural Cowley Road. In addition, it is in a refurbished Victorian building, originally a pub, now a sympathetically restored Nandos.

Just near my house, it’s fabulous for those nights you can’t be bothered to cook and a quick trip out to Nandos is perfect for watching your favourite movie.

Or you can eat there. There is a lovely seating area, where you can eat your peri peri chicken and watch the passers by.

Quick service. Standard Nandos nosh. You can’t go wrong!

I am actually one of the very few people in the world who are not a big bad chicken fan. I will put up with chicken because it is healthy, cheapish and easy - but i would not say i enjoy it. However, i like it when i cannot taste it - for instance in a vindaloo. That being, i had always avoided nando’s like the plague and thought it was about as useful as a solar powered torch for someone like me.

But i was wrong.

We went here for a friends birthday last month - and trust me at first i was less than amused. I actually considered eating a small meal before hand and just ordering pudding! anyway, i didnt want to miss out on her birthday so i went. Looking at the menu at first i was nervous - spit roast chicken, quater chicken, chicken a la chicken… you get my point. Then i saw ‘Spicy Chicken’. And it said it was hot. Very hot. So i ordered it. If i was lucky, i wouldnt taste the chicken.

Anyway, it arrived and it looked how it should - pleasant, but only as pleasant as a chicken can look. Then i tried it.
Woweeee was it hot. and good. very good. and not just the spices. The actual chicken was good. It was moist (i HATE dry chicken - yuk) and cooked to perfection. The spices were great as well.

I would actually go as far as to say it was the best chicken i had ever had.

Would i eat there again? Yes. And by the looks of my friends and their clean plates, they would too.

This is a wonderful place to eat, suitable for romantic dates and family meals alike. The speciality is Portugese grilled Peri-Peri chicken which you can have at various levels of spiciness or just plain. It is very child friendly and the kids can be kept busy with free kiddie packs of table games and colouring pages. The price of the fizzy soft drinks make the meal price go up a lot but you can refill them as many times as you want so it might be a good idea to share if you are skint. Those who like the spicier foods are bound to want more to drink so it seems that beverages are a key revenue stream for this place. The food is delicious, and they do takeaways too. You can phone in your order - 01865 203357 -to have it ready to pick up when you arrive. You can read more about the Nando's dining 'experience' at www.nandos.co.uk
There is off-street parking but it is a bit tricky to maneuver the car into their rather carmped car park.
There's a new Nando's near Gloucester Green - see my other review for more on that one.