Farringdon - Ryan Review

Was staying in Maidstone for the evening, so as with Old Street, it was a short(ish) drive up to London, so why not head to this newest of all Nando's? After 6pm weeknights (and all weekend) there is no congestion charge and most of the on-street parking bays do not charge either, so after finally navigating through all of the traffic and roadworks, a space only a few minutes walk away was easily found. As has been reported by other reviews too, this Nando's is right outside Farringdon train and underground station.

Arrived at this Nando's at about 8pm and although there didn't seem to be anybody waiting for a table, was told there was a 45 minute wait, unless the two of us wanted to perch on the breakfast bar-style seating - which we did. Seems an odd use of the space as the shelf runs around the window and walls and give about 13 seats (and table numbers), whereas you could easily fit three or four tables in there. Maybe a lot of people like to shovel a Nando's at lunch on their own... Towards the back of this ground floor section past the tills, kitchen and the stairs (down towards the toilets and basement seating) are some booths and tables... Not many though as it's a small sized Nando's. The lighting is mostly made up of single light bulbs hanging down without shades.

Downstairs it's pretty cramped too, but there are two larger booths/tables surrounded by textured/block cladding on the walls which are lit nicely by the spotlight lighting immediately above them. There is still the awkward table Blaynos pointed out which is right infront of the sauce/plates section. Toilets were very bright and colourful and very clean. Overall though, this was not impressive. It's too small and too oddly laid out.

There was no wait to order and my friend and I ordered at the same time. His took just under 10 minutes to come, but mine then took a further 25 minutes to come. Two staff members did come and advise they would go and check on it but it didn't hurry it up and outside of this they did as was expected of them.

When it did come, it was generally worth the wait, but was a mixed bag. The breast piece of the half chicken was very meaty, piping hot and very succulent (the wing piece was pretty scabby though with barely any meat on it). The chip portion was large and the chips were hot and crispy. The vegetables were hot and saucy, but the rice was cold and chewy.