Chicken Piri Piri Authentic Portuguese BBQ Opens in Stratford

"Piri piri" just means "pepper" in the related languages of sub-Saharan Africa, and you may have had piri piri sauce from a bottle, or used the specific variety under its English name, Bird's Eye Peppers, but the Portuguese found it in Mozambique. The flavor-cultural export found its way into the culinary world of Portugal and took hold the way curries have permeated the U.K. The Vilarinho family of restaurateurs from Porto Cancais outside Lisbon saw an opportunity here, and opened their first Chicken Piri Piri in America about ten years ago. Their newest location is a little storefront by Paradise Green in Stratford. CTBites recently stopped by for lunch, and here's what we found at Chicken Piri Piri Portuguese BBQ.

The restaurant itself has a few tables, but mainly seems to cater to the take-out crowd. It was quiet mid-afternoon, but I was offered a pad and pen to enter my phone number into a text list at checkout to receive alerts for when the suckling pig and lamb roasts are ready on Sundays. With an 11am opening that day, owner João Paulo told me they were often sold out by 3:00. The location has only been open for about a month, so it appears I just stopped by at a slow time.

A sign offered a lunch special of two empanadas and a side for $8, and the golden half moons looked tempting, but the sign out front said piri piri chicken, and my mouth was on a mission. João pulled the lid off a tray, revealing a half dozen small, whole chickens, glistening with juices, skins coated with a ruddy glaze of peppers. Yes - this. Very much this.

João began preparing my order of a half chicken with a side of baked beans and suggested I really should also take a look at the piri piri pork. "Very popular. On the bone, like osso bucco," and - unrepentant pork voyeur that I am - I couldn't resist. The charcoal BBQ'd shanks offered a red-light district of eye candy, and I resolved to make them mine during a return trip because, yes, I will certainly be back.

The delicate little chicken turned out to have been somewhat mangled by the halving process when I got it home, but the amount this bothered me was exactly zero as I dug in. The chicken was still hot, juicy, and flavorful - permeated by the smoke, and zinged up by the pepper sauce. The skin was studded with more than a few seeds to provide random crunchy bits of additional heat, but the glaze itself was very mild, and delivered more savory taste than any detectable burn, but your mileage may vary. For anyone (me) who wants to turn up the wick, Piri Piri offers small plastic jars of its pepper sauce to go at no additional charge.

The baked beans usually come with vegetable rice, which I declined, and are made with two kinds of beans in a rich, slightly spicy and vegetal sauce, with a few chunks of mild green peppers here and there. I may have caught a few bits of pork in there as well, and you should ask if you're vegetarian, but man were they good.

Half a (small) chicken ran me $13, so it's probably a better deal to just buy the whole bird for $19, and the side of beans was $3. I did not try the empanadas or the advertised house recipe fries or potato chips, but there is always next time, when I may indulge with one of the free dessert coupons which arrived with the flier in my to-go bag. There will definitely be a next time.

Chicken Piri Piri Portuguese BBQ, 3530 Main St., Stratford; 203 383 2303; 12-9pm Tues.-Sat., 11a-9p Sunday