The chickens are rising

Nando's is a phenomenon, especially among teenagers, and the chicken chain is aiming to rule the roost over here with its new Mary Street branch in Dublin, writes CATHERINE CLEARY

IT’S HARD NOT to feel the pull of the mothership on a first trip to Nando’s. As two women queue behind me at the cash machine on Dublin’s Henry Street, one explains to the other how she’s already been to the Nando’s in Swords. At the tables inside the new Mary Street restaurant the woman beside me says she has been to both Swords and Dundrum.

Nando’s has been gestating a fanbase for spicy fried chicken in Ireland’s shopping centres. Now they’ve come to city centre Dublin, first here on Mary Street and due to travel south of the Liffey to St Andrew’s Street soon. Like a B-movie monster or a collapsing star, will it pull everything around it into its maw?

I’m a Nando’s newbie, and outside its target market. I don’t like chain restaurants, where the truck from the depot delivers boxes of food to be cooked by someone following a set of wipe-clean laminated instructions.

But Nando’s is not McDonald’s. The chain began in South Africa and made it big in Britain in the 1990s serving Portuguese piri-piri chicken. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything plastic in its premises. The sauces come in glass bottles you can bring to your table. In Mary Street there’s a rattan-covered ceiling, industrial lamps, and stools where we perch uncomfortably for our meal.

My friend Mark instantly dubs them “tractor seats”. (Picture the moulded iron bucket seat of a 1950s tractor and you’re there.) They all have the look of clever resourceful design from a continent where everything is used and re-used until it crumbles away. They put the work of African artists on the wall and the food is served to your table by friendly staff on heavy pottery plates, with coffee cups like the Denby wedding service kept in the good china cabinet.

So this is fast-food with character. But first you must be schooled in what they call in the feedback card “The Nando’s Way”. Mercifully the waitress just asks, “Have you been to Nando’s before?” I’m talked through the process of consulting the menu, taking my table number to the counter, paying for my food and having it delivered to the table.

Like any new language, the menu is complicated for a newbie. We squint at the deals, with two sides or one Fino side (“fino is Portuguese for posh” the menu cheerily tells). As we decide, two members of staff come separately to disinfect the other end of the table with spritz bottles. There’s a short queue and another smiling face at the till. Then the food comes pretty quickly on those nice plates.

Mark’s chicken livers with a roll and a side order of ratatouille (€11.75) is a surprisingly good dish, with a well-spiced, tasty sauce (ordered medium from the five grades of spice). Individual chunks of celery and courgette are visible in the ratatouille rather than a generic mush of stewed vegetables. (Although I can’t imagine many teenage customers go for the bowl of chicken livers option.)

My butterflied chicken breast with macho peas and a grilled corn cob (€13.90) is less impressive. The chicken is faintly dry and tasteless. Without the skin it would be merely a portion of protein. There’s a slick of pinkish sauce which I’ve ordered on the wimpish “lemon and herb” heat setting that still tastes lip-tinglingly fiery. The peas are great though, a small bowl of mushed and whole peas with mint leaves and small bits of chilli. The sweetcorn is also delicious, slightly charred and drizzled with a medium hot sauce. Mark’s Superbock beer (€4.80) is tasty and a Savanna cider (€4.80) is a good partner.

A thick wedge of chocolate cheesecake (€6.20), hot chocolate, a nice chocolate ice cream (€4), and an organic mint tea in a fabric bag round things off well.

Nando’s is not cheap, but it is cheerful. Mark reckons it could be put on the list for a birthday party where parents and kids get to eat what they like. The chicken is Irish, “never frozen” the menus state, but there is no mention of free range. So are these battery birds sitting in artificial light for their short, brutish lives? The foil pack of butter that came with my corn cob has the mind-boggling sentence, “Warning: Contains milk” printed on it. If you’re okay with all that, then you can sign up to a Nando’s loyalty card, which you’re offered when you pay the bill. For me it’s a thanks, but no thanks.

Dinner for two with two drinks and desserts came to €50.75.

Twitter.com/catherineeats

Nando's

51/52 Mary St, Dublin 1, tel: 01-8720011

Music: Loud, world music everywhere

Facilities: Unisex and high-tech.

The music follows you via piped ceiling speakers

Wheelchair access: Yes

Food provenance: "Irish" chicken and nothing more about the rest of the ingredients

Harvest time at Cafe Rua

Beetroot and goats' cheese has been a menu staple for a very long time. So it was great to taste an interesting variation on the theme from Castlebar's Café Rua recently. At a recent Good Food Ireland event Aran McMahon served pots of shockingly-cerise-pink chilled beet soup with a dollop of Ardsallagh goats' cheese in the middle. It was a brilliant reminder of why these flavour partners work together.

September is a golden month for the Mayo café with their local producers in harvest mode. They run one-off "Rua at Night" dinners in their second cafe, Rua Deli on Spencer Street on the last Friday of each month, with a three-course local, seasonal menu for around €40 a head. If the soup is anything to go by it should be more than a bit special.

Café Rua, New Antrim Street, Castlebar, Co Mayo, tel: 094-9023376. For bookings for Rua at Night, tel: 094-9286072