Peri-peri patron: how Nando’s amassed a huge collection of South African art

Chicken chain has been buying up art since 2004, which it displays on walls of its restaurants

On a weekday lunchtime the Nando’s restaurant in Maponya Mall in Soweto, the sprawling former Black township on Johannesburg’s outskirts, was busy with couples, white-collar workers and older women dining alone. Behind them, a vivid graffiti portrait of a young Black woman filled the wall.

The mural, by the Cape Town artist Kilmany-Jo Liversage, is part of one of the largest private art collections in the world and, its curators believe, potentially the largest on public display.