Art at the new Nando’s Central Kitchen

Nando’s Central Kitchen Art Studio

From what started out as a small kitchen in Lorentzville in Johannesburg’s inner city in the early 1990s, Nando’s has built a global brand which is now famous for their Portuguese-style peri-peri chicken, bold advertising campaigns and their unwavering support of local art. They started their Global Art Initiative in 2001, and have since invested over R70 million to collect original pieces by local artists, which are displayed in their restaurants and offices around the world. Their growing collection now consists of an impressive 11,000 original artworks, making it the largest collection of African contemporary art displayed internationally, of which many are hanging in the recently renovated offices know as Central Kitchen.

Central Kitchen is the Nando’s headquarters in Lorentzville, Johannesburg. And by ‘headquarters’ we don’t mean a standard corporate office space with drywall cubicles and fluorescent lighting. Instead, Central Kitchen is a bright and dynamic, multifunctional space with a uniquely South African urban feel, furnished and decorated with work by over 50 local artists and furniture designers. CK (as it’s affectionately known) houses their head office, but also the Culinary Innovation Centre comprising of a test kitchen, analytical food lab and a sensorium, an in-house Nando’s restaurant, an art gallery and art studio, a Peri-Peri chilli garden, a gym, their very own radio station called Heatwave, Loja’s gift shop and Gloria’s Bar on the roof terrace. “At Central Kitchen you will literally feel Nando’s” says founder Robbie Brozin, and we’d have to agree.