A non-British, non English-native speaker and, on top of that, not even a Westerner, attempting to figure out the trending ‘cheeky Nando’s’ buzz.
What is a cheeky Nando’s and who is the Archbishop of Banterbury?
Last months saw the Internet confused over the phrase ‘Cheeky Nando’s’.
The typical story goes like this: a group of young lads is chilling out when hunger hits. Along comes this ledge, who is the Archbishop of Banterbury, and suggests they go for a cheeky Nando’s in the bantmobile, so the whole squad goes: “Yasss, let’s smash it!”
Nando’s is a food chain made famous by its Peri-Peri Chicken, but more so by 20-something urban British lads who have created the cheeky Nando’s social buzz around it.
Why is Nando’s so cheeky? The adjective cheeky in a context referring to food is to describe its ability to please everyone from the squad. But cheeky can mean much more as its definition varies upon the context. It is a word used to describe a cunningly rude attitude or a mixture of wit and sarcasm.
The squad, itself, is the group of lads who share the same hunger for banter.
Basically, banter is a playful witted exchange of teasing remarks or a verbal back-and-forth duel. It might go to the border of bullying and might seriously baffle the outsiders because of the use of colloquial slang terms specific to any given group of people.
Now, who is this Archbishop of Banterbury and why is he a ledge? Well, he is legendary for having mastered the art of banter, of course!
And from there we go onto the bantmobile, which simply describes the vehicle in which lads share a ride. The whole squad packs into a bus, or a car or other shared means of transport and makes its way to the cheeky food venue.
So we got it stripped down to urban youngsters in the mid-point of a night out, when the banter is really going and the squad is probably “taking the piss” (making fun) of each other during a shared ride or shared food cheeky indulgence at a place which is close to top notch.
The exact origin of the phrase ‘cheeky Nando’s’ is unclear. There is a Twitter user who has been unofficially pronounced as the pioneer of the term, based on a tweet from 2009, but there is also a hip-hop song with that title from 2011. Could it be simply a brilliant marketing strategy by the Nando’s food chain?
Would it be a mistake to make a claim that a Cheeky Nando’s feels like a serious part of the modern urban British culture? Looks like someone had a cheeky Nando’s.
