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Please note that these are only a selection. Use Trip Advisor to search for the most popular.
In an area called higher hullet – near Caravan Hotel.
Great French cuisine. Tel 011 662 9482 – book to avoid disappointment
At Kebena – Near Tesfa Office
Great Italian food:- Tel 092 160 7738 – Book to avoid disappointment
Also Casanchis – Italian food – nice garden – good pasta dishes
Great pizzas, take away or eat in – small place.
Near Atlas Hotel junction in Higher Hullet t. 011 849 3648
Behind Sidist Kilo. Really traditional Armenian Food – excellent value. Dinner only – closed Sunday night.
Food includes Shish kebabs, stuffed vineleaves, cheese boreks (cheese in pastry), meat boreks and much more.
Behind Meskal Square. Very good value Italian food – great ravioli, home made tagliatelli, and numerous dishes. The bar serves great Pizzas too.
The third of the clubs from old times. Found off the Olympia junction at the Meskal square end of Bole Road. Serves a variety of Greek dishes (as you would expect).
The oldest and most famous of the Italian restaurant in Addis. Does a superb range of fresh salads, cheeses and cold cuts as a starter. Located in Piazza. Book to avoid disappointment – +0111571757
Some of the best Indian food is probably in the Sheraton restaurant. Also good to book here as it gets full. Sheraton tel – 011 571 1717
Excellent vegan Indian food – cool little restaurant. Check their website www.omindianbistro.net. Book 0944 443 344
Many a good tibbs is served alongside the butchers shop, often to be swilled down with cold beers. Shekla tibbs will get you sizzling pieces of meat in a black clay pot with a small flame beneath it. You should get mustard (senafetch) and chilli (awaze for the sauce, berbery for the powder) to eat with it . It will often have pieces of onion and green chilli (karia) tossed in too.
Orthodox Ethiopians fast almost half of the year. Through most of the year (except the weeks following Fasika (Ethiopian Easter) people fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. But there are numerous periods of fasting such as the 55 days leading up to Fasika and the month before Gena (Ethiopian Christmas). On these days typically people don’t eat in the morning (or until late morning) and when they do eat the food must be vegan (no meat or dairy products), although fish is allowed by some and so fried fish may be on the menu. The most common dish is ye tsom beyanetu (a mix of fasting dishes). This is likely to include a lot of pulses, some in spicy sauces, and various different vegetables all placed on a plater of enjara.
A famous place that is well known and easier to find & more comfortable is Dashen restaurant. Dashen serves fasting food even at non-fasting times, and has great meat dishes too – and is a perfect place to try a variety of Ethiopian national dishes, with tables outside on the terrace. It is not far from our offices in Cassanchis. There is music hear in the evening. An upmarket place to try Ethiopian food in the Bole area is Kategna. If you are undecided, or some in the group want international food while others want to try Ethiopian food, then head for Lucy restaurant – it is adjacent tho the national museum and has a lovely outdoor eating area. It does get busy here at lunchtimes so go early for a table.
There are many traditional places which have a cabaret act show casing traditional dances from around Ethiopia. Many of these are frequented by at least as many local people as foreigners. The dancing is a lot of fun and hugely impressive. You will have a chance to shake your shoulders too. Some of these focus on food and dance like Checheho near ‘Bob Marley’ roundabout. Many of these are big places – good if you are a bigger group. But you can also go to a smaller Azmari bet (Azmari is the masinko player who makes up small songs about his clients – and the Maskinko is like a single string violin). In Addis the vey famous place is Fendika (near Dashen restaurant) – with excellent dancers and musicians and different shows on different nights.
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Don’t forget to sample coffee. There are plenty of cafes around town. The most famous for coffee is Tomoca in the Piazza area – which is like a traditional old Italian coffee house.
For the most part you will be rather disappointed with the average hotel food provided. Fancy names for dishes which turn out to be nothing like it are common.
Eating Ethiopian food can make life more interesting and rewarding. A basic safe food to eat is tibbs. Tibbs means fried – and in this case you will get small chunks of meat (usually mutton – beg– or beef – buray – but if your lucky could be goat too – fiyel ) fried up in butter or oil – often with some onion, garlic and perhaps green chilli – karia – thrown in.
This will be served with enjara – a flat thin pancake type bread made with a fermented liquid dough made from tef, itself a local grain similar to millet and very nutritious. Enjara is generally made every few days and tastes increasingly sour with time. So good to try to request fresh (-tukous-) enjara if the sour taste puts you off. They may also be able to provide some bread – and tibbs with fresh bread is great.
Another staple food is shiro – which is a da’al like food made from ground roasted chickpeas with spices in it. It is again usually eaten with enjara but can sometimes be ordered with bread. It may be prepared with butter or oil in its cooking, and can be quite a thin soupy shiro, or a thicker ‘consistency of mashed potato’ shiro (- tegamino – cooked in a clay pot).
Do try some of the other foods too, but do try them at a recommended restaurant to start with (see the list above, or ask your guide where it is best eaten). Outside Addis I usually recommend Ethiopian food for lunch as it is freshly prepared. Except for tibbs & shiro which is always fresh – other dishes are prepared in advance.
In Bahir Dar – ask your guide where the freshest lake fish – assa – is cooked. There are some great little stalls on the side of the lake on the edge of town. (Fish: Nile Perch or Telapia, is also prepared around the Rift Valley lakes in southern Ethiopia but beware eating it far from its source).
In Gondar you can also eat amazing fish at a little place in the centre called Master Chef. The recommended place for Ethiopian food is the 3 Sisters restaurant near to the Castles. There
In Lalibela – as an exception to the rest of the north – there is a restaurant – Ben Abeba, that you will remember for its unusual location as well as its food. Here you can have things like Shepherd Pie, Fish cakes (using tuna), Goat burgers and great Ethiopian food. It is run by a Scottish woman called Susan and her business partner Habtamu. Check it out.
Gheralta Lodge in Tigray serves good simple food, using salad from their own garden and good tasting ingredients.
Agoro Lodge employed the services of a Spanish Chef to train the cooks – do let us know how you get on there.
While in Adigrat do try the local speciality – Teh’lo: spicy sauce served in a clay pot – with meat in it, and some barley liquid added to it, eaten with balls of barley paste (made from roasted barley) and eaten with special wooden utensils.
In Gondar – go to the foul cafes around Piazza and get a special foul. Foul is made from beans cooked into a puree, and in this case served with some scrambled egg, some yogurt, chili and onion. Its eaten with fresh bread. This is a common breakfast food you can try in different places. I particularly like Tele Cafe on the piazza roudnabout as you can watch life go by under the statue of Tewedros.
While I mention eggs – the little Ethiopian egg – enkulal– from the small chickens here -is perhaps the most tasty egg you can find. You must try enkulal firfir (scrambled egg) at a few breakfast places. In Gondar and Tigray the bread that is served in local places is also very good. The best eggs are in the countryside – on our community treks.
Raw meat (teray siga)– is eaten in two ways in Ethiopia. Most famously people will eat chunks of raw beef or goat meat with chilli and mustard sauce, probably washed down with a few beers. The prime risk in doing this is catching tape worm. This is not highly dangerous and can easily be treated with de-worming tablets. So if you are keen to try it talk to your guide. It maybe others can eat their meat cooked at the same time. The other form of uncooked meat is kitfo – minced beef that is prepared with spiced butter and chilli powder. This is a Gurage dish and is best tasted in the kitfo houses in Addis Ababa. You can also order it lightly cooked – lublub – or well fried – tibbs. But once well cooked it looses its tastes. With kitfo – the quality of the butter may have a short term effect on your tummy too!
If you spice up your culinary adventure with some local food in recommended places (busy places frequented by well to do locals – are always a very good bet) you will enjoy your trip far more than just playing safe and eating in the hotel restaurant (to be honest you are equally if not more at risk in tourist places).
Bon appetite,
The Tesfa Tours Team
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