Star Rating:
Nando’s in Highcross Shopping Centre, Leicester is it a wide square of restaurants in which I often visit as illustrated in previous reviews.
The restaurant has complete flat access to get in, but then there is a front of house stand which is quite close to the entrance, so it is difficult to manoeuvre around it to get into the main restaurant. There are two floors to the restaurant, one of the main seating and eating areas and more seating and toilets upstairs, as far as I’m aware the women’s and men’s toilet is up these stairs and the standard sized disabled toilet is it the very back of the main floor, which could be accessed by all customers. Once again, I really think the sizes of all disabled toilets need to be revised as well as anything else within the restaurant that makes disabled customers have a more enjoyable experience at the restaurant.
I am unable to go to the higher floor of the restaurant but everything on the main floor is accessible and which I can get to if needed too. The accessibility and space is made restricted and difficult when disabled people get into the restaurant itself and try and manoeuvre through the extensive tables and chairs and our fellow customers to be able to get to our seats. I understand why it is designed this way, trying to entice lots of customers and being able to seat everyone that comes in. But still I think the layout of the main floor needs to be rethought so disabled people, particularly those in wheelchairs are able to get to their seats as easy as possible. On the day of my visit, I was very lucky to have my personal assistant with me as well as helpful staff members to move empty chairs aside for me as well as kindly asking customers to move aside while I passed.
As I’ve come to expect at restaurants, the tables were ever very low height and I had to tilt my chair down all the way to be able to try and get underneath it, but I still struggled to get underneath and money is kept banging on the edge of the table, the wooden underside of the table didn’t feel the best against my already sore knees. Once again the tables and the spacing between tables need to be reconsidered to be able to accommodate everyone.
The staff members we’re very kind and considerate as well as attentive throughout our visit and were always there if we needed them during our meal. I was really grateful to them as it made our dining experience easier, even though my knees hurt and my back ached due to the lowness of the tables and chairs.
The atmosphere around the restaurant was upbeat and positive, I didn’t feel that my fellow customers were close enough to us to overhear our conversation nor did I feel suffocated by their presents, it was nice to hear the light bars of conversation around us while talking amongst ourselves. There was also some light music in the background which added nicely to the atmosphere.
I enjoy the fact that all Nando’s restaurants offers a small selection of bottomless drinks for customers to have, as well as this there were alternatives which included apple juice and orange juice as well as sparkling water. This particular visit I had a bottle of Coke which I definitely needed to quench my first from the spiciness of the chicken meal that I chose to have. I would definitely recommend having the bottomless drinks when you go to Nando’s. There’s a wide choice of different chickens related meals on the menu; pitas, burgers, wraps, sharing platters as well as regular chicken with bones and boneless chicken, I have been to Nando’s many times before and had a chicken pitta which was very nice and had lots of flavour to it as well as a small amount of vegetables within the pitta. I love how Nando’s offer different level of spices to suit all customers and their palettes. I used to go for the lemon and herb spice, wanting a little bit of zing to my meal without too much spice. More recently however, I have felt my taste palette change and have become more tolerant of spice and enjoy it more than I used to, this is lead me to having the mango and lime spice on my meals at Nando’s. I have had the mango and lime spice on my chicken pitta and now on my four boneless chicken thighs, I really enjoy these chicken thighs and love how they are bonus as it allows me and to enjoy the chicken more and I do not struggle with being able to eat from the bones which has been a problem before. These chicken thighs along with peri Peri salted chips is absolutely delicious, but I just warn people that the Peri-Peri salted fries can vary in quality as the Peri-Peri salt can be either scattered through all of the chips or just deliberately put on the top of the portions which leads to the bottom of the portion of chips being soggy.
I will be returning to Nando’s Highcross Leicester soon as well as any other Nando’s restaurants.
The Life of Sophie 