A Virar Frangos

Portuguese grilled chicken, known locally as frango piri-piri or frango assado, is a cultural institution. You'll find it in restaurants all over the country, but nothing beats the experience of a neighborhood churrasqueira - places purely dedicated to the dish where they’re grilled over charcoal, and the sight of rotating, spatchcocked chickens often greet you through the window even before you enter. The chickens are basted with either a lemon-based sauce or piri-piri: a spicy, homemade marinade whose recipe differs from restaurant to restaurant, but gives an equally wonderful smell as it drips off the chicken onto the coals. They’re usually eaten with the double-carb combination of rice and chips with salad. To start, you might try one of Portugal’s fun, fried snacks, like rissóis (half-moon parcels, stuffed with either prawns or roasted pork). On a colder evening, I might start with some canja: a soothing chicken broth with small bits of pasta, such as massa pevide (similar to orzo).

You can't, however, label the dish as entirely Portuguese. Its origins are closely tied to their role in the spice trade, having come across the bird's eye pepper in the Americas. In order to further cultivate and sell it to Asian and European markets, Portuguese colonialists introduced it to their African colonies, where it took on its own life and became a part of their local cuisines over the coming centuries and piri-piri - both the marinade and the chicken - was born. Its exact origins are unknown, for example whether it specifically developed in Angola or Mozambique, though it spread across the continent nonetheless. Frango piri-piri then became popular in Portugal in the 1960s, particularly in the Algarve, with the arrival of African immigration and the return of Portuguese civil servants stationed in the continent. Restaurante Ramires, which has been making it since 1964 in the town of Guía, is considered to be one of the earliest restaurants that helped popularise it.

The place this dish holds in Portuguese culture is not only linked to their colonial past, it has also been shaped by more recent waves of immigration, particularly from South Asia, and the churrasqueiras that they’ve opened in cities like Lisbon. Sure, they make your classic frango assado with the usual rice, chips and salad, but if you’re willing to branch out, you’ll find a series of joyful, non-traditional sides and sauces to build your meal around. They don’t only reflect each cook's journey and heritage, but continue the trend of cultural exchange that has made frango assado what it is today.

Uma Churrasqueira, which neighbours Lisbon’s Sapadores Market and was founded by Umakanta Dallekoti in 2015 after moving from Nepal, is a great example of this. I recommend his handmade samosas or momos to start your meal. “I make them by hand every Monday for the week, when the restaurant is closed,” he tells me one lunchtime in the terrace of his restaurant, “Not everyone knows how to wrap them like I do, so while I trust the others with the rest of the food, I have to do this one part myself.”  

His pride in the piri-piri recipe he’s worked on over the years is reflected in his reluctance to share it: “We marinate the chicken in… our things,” is all the information I can get when asking him about it. Whatever goes in it, it’s a real reflection of his personal journey after arriving in Lisbon, when he learned how to make frango assado by working at a number of Mozambican restaurants, including the now world-famous Cantinho do Aziz and another restaurant where he once grilled 900 birds in a day. So while it’s not a recipe he grew up cooking or eating, he picked up a lot of experience along the way — or to use the Portuguese idiom, “muitos anos a virar frangos” that applies both literally (“many years flipping chickens”) and figuratively (“it’s not his first rodeo”). In addition to piri-piri chicken, he also makes frango à zambeziana, a Mozambican recipe where it’s marinated and brushed with a coconut sauce while grilling. You can also see this influence in his curries, where he combines both Nepalese and Mozambican flavours as well.

Before starting his own restaurant, he also briefly worked at Zubir Churrasqueira, a short walk away in Lisbon's Arroios district that I recently visited. A number of locals arrive to pick up their takeaways as I wait for my food, while an older Portuguese man on the table opposite me tucks into his chicken, rice, chips and salad. The longer and fluffier basmati rice, instead of the Portuguese agulha variety, is the only visible sign on his table that we’re not in your average churrasqueira. This becomes more evident when my food arrives: a handmade beef samosa, followed by a half piri-piri chicken and a freshly-made buttery naan, with their special green chilli chutney and a cup of masala chai. 

The restaurant was founded by Zubair Abdullah in 2009 after moving from Pakistan, although 2 years later it was soon taken over by his stepson, Cesar Alves, who’s from Brazil — which has resulted in a wonderful mix of cultures in the kitchen. They no longer make the goat curry which was on the menu when they opened, but their menu has since acquired a Brazilian twist. “I’ll order you some picanha,” Alves tells me, when we meet for lunch a few days later, referring to a particular cut of beef that's popular in Brazil, and is also cooked on their charcoal grill, “We make it with rice and black beans, inspired by how it's done back home, and it's our second-most popular meal after the chicken.” You can ask for it marinated in the same piri-piri as the chicken as well: “Like a regular piri-piri, but with a little bit of Pakistani spices.”. Much like at Uma, the chicken is delicious: with crispy charred skin, and tender, juicy meat.

This mix of cultures you can find in these restaurants isn’t only delicious, but also particularly significant when considering the anti South Asian racism that has accompanied the rise of Portugal’s far-right party Chega. In this year's presidential election campaign, where they placed second, they ran the slogan "This Isn't Bangladesh," even erecting billboards repeating the phrase and spreading rhetoric of immigration “destroying Europe.” 

Despite some comments on social media, this racism has thankfully yet to spill over into the everyday experience of running these restaurants. They are, as Alves pointed out to me, in a very multi-cultural neighborhood, which is reflected in their clientele: “We get both locals and tourists, families from Portugal but also Brazil, Asia and Africa. We feed everyone, treat them with respect, and thankfully get the same in return” he tells me. 

It's critical that these conversations do not fall into the "good immigrant" narrative — where an immigrant's humanity is only conditionally recognized based on certain achievements, or assimilating to continually moving criteria. Nonetheless, it bears pointing out that Dallekoti and Abdullah are proof of how immigration can not only embrace, but contribute to and enrich a local culture. That it's specifically happening with frango assado - a beloved Portuguese dish whose past has been continually shaped by the continued movement of people and mixing of cultures - is especially fitting. You might even say it’s not the dish's first rodeo.