Maidstone - Damien Review

We travelled less than an hour out of London for the 88th Nando’s. Parking in a spacious multi-story car park in the centre of Maidstone. It was an early Sunday afternoon and the despite the Nando’s only having been open for half an hour, they were already bustling and didn’t have space to immediately accommodate our group of seven adults and three kids. With a wait time of half an hour, we strolled up the road to an empty pub and had a drink in their beer garden. On the return to Nando’s, it struck me how quiet the town centre was. Everybody out and about today must be eating in this place!

We were given the best table in the house. A large round table in the back alcove of the upstairs floor. Colouring pictures were provided before we were seated, but I had to go and seek out some crayons. We eventually took turns at ordering. The upstairs counter staff were exceptionally on the ball, the girl who served me selecting stuff on the till as I was saying the words. Despite being a rather large group, our food orders weren’t messed up. They were a little staggered and it was a shame that the children’s meals arrived last but there were no missing bits and pieces. The only quibble we had was with the lack of peri salt on our chips, which was swiftly sorted by alerting a member of staff.

My thigh burger was very nice, the halloumi perfectly grilled and the spicy rice wasn’t dry, for a change. Mango and lime spice was a bit too hot for the small children to handle, but this lead a two year old to trying out halloumi for the first time. She loved it! We stuck around for a while after eating, chatting over frozen yogurt. Pro-tip: Don’t try pei salt on froyo!

Overall, Maidstone is a great example of a Nando's, with the distance from tables to the toilets being my only major gripe regarding the layout. Very impressed!