Llanelli’s Nandos has been ranked the second best in Wales in a study that measured branches by the share of Tripadvisor customers who said their visit was excellent. The Llanelli outlet recorded a 42.7% excellent rate from 199 reviews, including 85 that were marked excellent.

Newport’s Friars Walk branch topped the Welsh table with a 50% excellent rate from 112 reviews, leaving Llanelli 26 points behind the national leader. But the gap across Wales was wide, and the numbers show how sharply customer ratings can differ from one branch to the next.

The study analysed Tripadvisor reviews for every Nando’s location listed on the chain’s website, then ranked the branches by excellent ratings. That put Swansea Morfa Retail Park sixth in Wales with a 38.1% excellent rate from 21 reviews, while Swansea City Gates came ninth with 30% from 250 reviews. Cardiff’s three branches sat in the lower half of the Welsh rankings, clustered around the 27% to 30% range, and Merthyr Tydfil finished bottom of the 14 Welsh branches with 23.9% of its reviews rated excellent. Cardiff Capital Retail Park was excluded because it had no Tripadvisor page or zero reviews.

The same method also put Waterloo in London at the top of the UK-wide rankings, with a 94.3% excellent rate from 53 reviews. In Wales, the study’s findings point to a chain with pockets of strong approval and others that trail well behind, even within the same cities. Matt White said the results suggest customer experience at Nando’s can vary significantly across Wales.

That matters in south Wales because the chain is still expanding. Plans have been lodged to open a new Nando’s at Parc Fforestfach Retail Park in Swansea, taking over the current Card Factory unit and potentially creating 40 jobs. The move would give Swansea a third branch and add another entry to a Welsh market already split between the strongest performers and the ones that lag far behind.

Llanelli has long had reasons to hold its head high, from the Scarlets to its mural and seaside setting, and this latest ranking gives the town another small piece of bragging rights. For now, the answer to where Nando’s does best in Wales is clear: Newport leads, but Llanelli is close enough behind to claim second place.