UAE: Nando’s co-founders reveal secrets behind PERi-PERi chicken, bottled sauce

UAE: Nando’s co-founders reveal secrets behind PERi-PERi chicken, bottled sauce

The backstory of the origin of the multinational restaurant chain, Nando’s, which specialises in flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken and is celebrating 20 years in the UAE, has assumed mythical proportions across the globe and, at times, is shrouded in mystery.

Questions abound whether it started in the United Kingdom (UK), Portugal, South Africa, or the deepest, darkest PERi-PERi heartlands of Mozambique in southern Africa, which has a strong Portuguese influence.

The origin

Nando’s was started by Robert Brozin and Fernando Duarte in South Africa in 1987. The duo, who became lifelong friends, worked together at Robert’s father’s electronics business, where Fernando and Robert were technical and marketing managers, respectively. Fernando is from Porto, Portugal, and his family had emigrated to South Africa and had spent five years in Mozambique.

In 1987, Fernando took Robert to a chicken restaurant called Chickenland in Rosettenville, Johannesburg. Robert was so impressed with the restaurant’s flame-grilled chicken that he proposed they buy the restaurant. Though the financial odds were stacked against them, they managed to buy the eatery.

The restaurant was then named after Fernando, who is affectionately called Nando by his friends and family. Since inception, Nando's has adopted its mantra of not being just about the chicken. The bird,