Casa Do Frango Shoreditch - Shoreditch, London

Portuguese piri piri restaurant Casa do Frango immediately drew blood as one of the most sought-after yet accessible restaurants in London when it launched in 2018, the only detraction being its sometimes-extensive queues. Founders Jake Kasumov and Marco Mendez have now alleviated that pressure with the launch of Casa Do Frango's second site, tucked away on a Shoreditch backstreet not far from Protein Studios and Village Underground. We did a reccie on a busy Tuesday evening to see if it lived up to its sibling. 

The handsome restaurant is spread over two floors and leans into the culture and architectural aesthetics that have made Portugal such a popular destination of late. Diners enter the restaurant on the ground floor, welcomed by a handcrafted, bespoke dark oak bar serving petiscos (Portuguese tapas) and a Pasteleria baking pastéis de nata. The main dining room is upstairs and features lime-washed walls, glazed tiles, wooden flooring and floor-to-ceiling windows flooded with the city scene. We settled in with a couple pints of house beer infused with piri piri spices and waded through the menu. 

Starters are on point and impeccably prepared. We started off with potato sourdough an accoutrements (pickled carrots, olives, butter), then use the bread to mop up the oil left over from the piri piri garlic prawns. Octopus salad with pickled potatoes, black olives and coriander always delivers, as does grilled chorizo with guindilla peppers and black olive mayo. The hero dish at Casa D is obviously their half chicken brushed with piri-piri, and you can go as spicy as you like. Ethically, sustainably sourced from Norfolk, the free range birds are tender to the point of deliquescence, with a price point comparable to Nando's. Pad this out with sides of batatas fritas, African rice and montanheira salad and you're in business, then round it all off with some house-baked pastéis de nata. 

Casa Do Frango has all of the hallmarks of a massive hit and is an ideal fit for Shoreditch. Pay attention to upstart restaurant group MJMK as they're pipped to launch one of the hottest restaurants of 2020 with Santiago Lastra's Kol.

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