Peri Peri Grill House opens in Bethpage

If there was a hall of fame just for sauces, peri peri would definitely be in it. But maybe that's just the sauce at Peri Peri Grill House, which just opened in Bethpage. 

Unfortunately there aren't many options to compare it to, because peri peri is relatively underappreciated on Long Island. This surprised owner Sohaib Malik, who opened his first Peri Peri Grill House in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, in 2018. (Peri Peri Grill House is not affiliated with Peri-Peri Guys in Hicksville and Long Beach.)

"I go to London often," he said. "Every other street had a peri peri. I started thinking, why isn't there one here on every corner?" 

London is where Malik first tried Nando's, the South African chicken chain that popularized the spicy chicken dish, bringing it to more than 20 countries, mostly in Southern Africa and South Asia. The sauce originally hails from Mozambique, where 15th century Portuguese explorers mixed the peppers with lemon and vinegar to create the spicy ambrosia. Malik imports his own spice blends made from bird's eye chilis from his uncle's spice factory in London. His chicken is steamed and pressure-cooked in a special oven, then basted in the sauce and grilled to order. 

Now Malik and his brother Shaheer have opened a much larger location in the old Bagelafé near The Orient Chinese restaurant. The counter-service spot has a flavor meter with seven sauces, ranging from extra mild to extra hot.

If you're with another person or two, a pro-move is to order a whole chicken with four sides for $44.99. Since they're splitting up the chicken in the back anyway, they'll let you get it basted and then grilled, with two different sauces. The hot was the right amount of spice without being too painful. Although on the milder side, the garlic and herb sauce was breathtakingly good, a viscous blend of tangy heaven, with a trio of extra sauces on the side. The chicken itself is juicier than some other peri peri spots, and only faintly marked with the char from the grill. 

For a house built on chicken, the side dishes here are nearly as compelling. Citrusy seasoned fries are beautifully crispy and ultra zesty when dipped in the side sauces. Ditto for the gooey mac-and-cheese, which becomes a power punch with the chili. Even a brothy lentil soup was somehow packed with flavor.

Peri Peri Grill House, 629 Hicksville Rd., Bethpage, 516-261-9953, periperigh.com. Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.com

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.