Casa Do Frango

Portuguese

32 Southwark St, London SE1 1TU

££

Casa Do Frango aims to bring the spirit of Southern Portugal to London. It has set up shop in Shoreditch and London Bridge to provide unpretentious dining with quality sharing plates and piri piri chicken. I’d heard a couple of good things about the food, and whilst working a stones throw from the London Bridge establishment, decided to check it out one Tuesday evening.

Despite it being a Tuesday, we did have to book in advance. The London Bridge venue gets particularly busy, whilst Shoreditch appears to still have a few table options on the day. The space is different to how I’d imagined: going immediately upstairs, you are presented with a very large, bright room with hanging plants and tables. On the way to the toilet, you can also find a secret plush bar with velvet chairs and a stylish but accessible feel to it. It feels a little odd, as it’s so dark and mysterious in comparison to its bright, loud, less speakeasy more California dreaming counterpart.

Service was quick and efficient but didn’t really leave much room for any niceties, fine – as they were busy (and so were we, the purpose of the dinner being to plan an itinerary for a trip to Vienna). We ordered a bottle of the Evaristo red wine (£25) which was rich, dark and slightly dry. We followed by two salgadinhos (£2 each) to start, two portions of peri peri chicken (£12), a side of African rice (£7) and a green leaf salad (£4). For a start, I thought everything on the food menu was incredibly well priced. Think of Casa Do Frango as a boujie Nando’s and you’ve got the right idea. The salgadinhos were like empanadas, filled with kale, mushroom and caramelised onion. They were teeny tiny but were fried perfectly, not too stodgy, and were a nice taster to start us off.

We were originally advised to order one portion of chicken between two as well as a number of sharing plates. However, once we’d pondered the sharing plates, we realised that there wasn’t really anything here screaming to us. Sure, I could have eaten anything on there, but I was really here for the chicken, so we decided to stick to having a portion of that each. The chicken itself was cooked very well – you could taste the charcoal grill and the meat itself was juicy, tender and just the right amount of smokey. There wasn’t one piece that felt overdone or dry, although it could have done with a slightly more generous portion of peri peri sauce for pouring. The only downside to the chicken was that there were quite a few bones. Whilst I’m no enemy of a chicken bone and a big fan of sucking a wing dry (we all know they’re where the flavour really is), these bones were so thin and tender that they were often easily missed and the knife cutting through them - meaning that I ended up chomping down on a piece of cartilage/soft bone more than once, and had to discreetly pull it out of my mouth in the most ladylike manner possible.

The salad that went with the chicken had a lovely dressing on it and was well seasoned with herbs: the fresh mint and dill coming through with just the right balance, but the African rice was by all means the favourite. With a combination of carolino rice, chorizo, crispy chicken skin and plantain, it sounded like a recipe dropped from grain heaven. To be honest, this side dish was my main driver for coming to Casa Do Frango at all, as I’m not head over heels for ordering chicken when out (in fact, unless it’s fried chicken I rarely do so at all). When the rice arrived, it was paler than I’d imagined – for some reason I was picturing an warm orange number stained from the chorizo meat juices. It also contained peas which I wasn’t expecting and appeared to be missing the plantain. The crispy chicken skin was unreal, so crunchy and thin with an unmistakable poultry flavour, this was the best part of the dish and managed to be its saving grace. It held the most flavour, as the chorizo became somewhat lost in the rice and didn’t provide the punch I was expecting.

Overall, casa do frango does chicken really well. The starters aren’t that impressive, and the sides are also pretty forgettable, so come for the chicken and do it properly. Whilst everything we had was definitely nice, nothing was stand-out exceptional. If you come to casa do frango expecting greatness, you’ll probably be disappointed. But come expecting a boujie nandos with a more comprehensive menu that allows you to think outside the box a little more and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

OVERALL RATING: ***

https://casadofrango.co.uk/