Cross the Tagus River from Lisbon and you’ll arrive in the sleepy former fishing village of Trafaria. On the surface, the town doesn’t look like a hot spot for fusion cuisine, but Piri Piri, a restaurant there, boasts dishes with influences that span three continents.
In 1961, when the former Portuguese colony of Goa was annexed by India, many Goans fled to another Portuguese possession, Mozambique. Unable to source all the ingredients of their homeland, they improvised with what they could find, creating a repertoire of dishes with clear Indian roots but that would probably have been unrecognizable back home.
This Indian-leaning, southeast African cuisine became popular in Mozambique, especially among white Portuguese settlers. When Mozambique became independent in 1975 and the Portuguese colonizers were booted out, the cuisine made its way to Europe, where it took yet another form.
Founded by ethnic Portuguese retornados who ran a restaurant in Mozambique, Piri-Piri serves a couple examples of this Goan-Mozambican-Portuguese hybrid. Caril, a mild, coconut milk- and spice powder-based curry that’s common across Lisbon, is typically served with shrimp or chicken. And frango à cafreal takes the form of chicken rubbed with a spicy marinade and grilled over coals, the dish thought to be the inspiration for the chicken peri-peri served at more than 1,200 locations of Nando’s.
