Abyssinia Restaurant & Bar

Very good! Clean, friendly, open. Smells amazing and tastes great. I can’t wait to comes back. Smaller portion than I thought but delicious

I remember reading about Abyssinia a few months ago and knew I had to try them out. This place definitely qualifies as a hidden gem. Unassuming, Abyssinia blends in with the rest of it’s surroundings. But don’t let that deter you, there is magic awaiting once you step through their doors.
I’ve visited twice now — both times on a Monday evening and it’s been pretty empty save for two or three tables. We may have ordered similar things both times, oops. The interior is warm and inviting, it looks like the inside of someone’s house, but their outside patio would be the perfect spot to chill outside and enjoy some good eats during the summer time. The waitress is very friendly and more than willing to help first timers (she showed us the proper technique of grabbing multiple things with one piece of injera).
— Yebeg tibs ($ 17.00), bozena shiro ($ 16.00) and veggie platter ($ 15.00) — tender chopped lamb sautéed with onion, tomato and jalapeño and served with awaze (a side of Ethiopian hot sauce). We went with spicy, which I highly recommend. Just a hint of heat to it but packed with so much flavour. The lamb was tender and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Be prepared to eat with your hands! Super fun and a nice change of pace from the norm.
The bozena shiro consists of ground chickpea sauce seasoned with garlic, onion and ginger cooked with tender pieces of beef. This one our waitress suggested and we found out it’s a dish that is served during special occasions. The shiro was a nice contrast to the yebeg tibs as the sauce was thicker, almost stew like. Both were good but the yebeg tibs definitely wins out.
The veggie combo consists of five dishes — kei misir wot (spicy lentils), gomen (collard greens), tikel gomen (cabbage), fosolia (green beans, carrots and potatoes), and kik wot (chickpeas). Both dishes come with injera (sourdough flatbread) and a side salad. The injera is quite different from anything I’ve eaten. On it’s own, it has a sour taste (from the teff flour used to make it) but compliments the food beautifully.
Make sure to check out their Wednesday/​Friday vegetarian buffets ($ 15.00) or Saturday meat buffets ($ 20.00). Super reasonable and if it’s anything like our dinners, I’ll bet everything is even more delicious. Just look for the Italian Centre (in Little Italy) and walk south from there. You can’t miss it.

When getting Ethiopian food, I always expect a longer than usual wait. The food here was total worth it. The Ethiopian coffee had good flavor and the food was delicious. I am interested in checking out the buffets offered on select nights.

Found out about the vegan buffet nights. Really craving injera. Bussed there from out of town, accidentally missed my stop, and wound up by government centre because the bus couldn’t stop earlier because the whole street was Edmonton only bus stops. 100% worth the effort it took to get there.
Sounds like an oxymoron coming from a vegan but I am really not a salad person, and I even went back for the salad. Every salad was good. Also the injera salad thing? Genius.
I’m probably a bit biased because I love Ethiopian food, but this place is great. Great food, great waitress, great experience, will come back.

A few years later and I still love to come here for Ethiopian food. Their vegan buffet night is fantastic and the owners are the kindest people! They have also added a nice little patio to eat on during the summer months.

Sorry to write this because we really liked the woman who served us, but the food was not that good. We could tell it was microwaved, not fresh. And one of the veggie side dishes was spoiled. For the price of $ 17/​dish, the food should be fresh and delicious. Now the place had a good amount of customers. Abyssinia, please, cut your menu down to just 1 or 2 items and make it good and always fresh. So we don’t have to eat frozen microwaved food. I have eaten Ethiopian food in Israel/​Palestine, New York, and California so perhaps my standards are high. There is no reason Abyssinia can’t match up though. Maybe on the nights of the buffet the food is fresh? But on non buffet nights, it definitely isn’t.

For first time eating Ethiopian styles food my fiancé passed the test. Great home style feel and good friendly atmosphere, woman working was a wonderful help and super patient with us. I recommend here.

Absolutely love this place! My husband and I went there last Friday for dinner, because we had heard such great things about the food here. We are vegan, so it can be difficult to find great restaurants that offer vegan food. However, Abyssinia has vegan dishes and even has a vegan buffet on Fridays for $ 15/​pp. Awesome!
Neither of us had ever eaten Ethiopian cuisine before, but we always love to try new things.
The restaurant itself isn’t anything fancy or special to look at, but the owners (husband and wife, I believe) were so nice and welcomed us in when we came in the door. We decided to do the vegan buffet, and the wife was so nice, she explained to us what every dish was, and even explained to us how they traditionally eat their food using traditional bread called injera. She told us how they use it as a fork and a spoon, to pick up food and soak up sauce with. So we didn’t use our forks much, and soaked up as much sauce as we could with the injera. It was so delicious!
They had so many food items to choose from — we tried everything. They even had fresh fruit for dessert. One of the best things about this food was that it wasn’t heavy at all. Unlike Indian food, for example, which is often saturated in oil and leaves me feeling bloated, heavy and tired, there was very little oil used in this food, and it left us feeling great and light at the end of the meal. All of the food was CLEAN-​eating, whole foods, too, so nothing gross and processed. That was such a nice treat from the usual restaurants in Edmonton that serve greasy fries and processed breads and things that aren’t good for your body. Everything we ate here was super healthy, and delicious to boot!
I was really impressed with the food and the service was awesome too. I was legit saying, «Mmmmm!» at each bite.
If you appreciate real, clean, healthy and delicious home-​made food that leaves you feeling happy and good inside, then this is the place for you.
Don’t walk, run to Abyssinia and go try some of this awesome food! Thanks for the great experience. We can’t wait to go back. This will be a regular place for us now. See you next Friday! :)

I’ve finally found *good* spicy food in this town. Best Ethiopian food I’ve had outside Ethiopia. I had the buffet, so I tried nearly everything… and it’s ALL excellent. The kitfo was so good that I went back for seconds.
Service was fast and the owners are complete sweethearts. Atmosphere, recipes, and location remind me of Addis Ababa’s best… places locals ate, not glitzy junk run by big hotels. I can’t say enough good things about this place. We can’t wait to go back.

Abyssinia is a delightful restaurant with a comfortable feel, tasty food, and affordable prices. While it won’t win any points for its exterior appearance, the delicious food and comfortable interior of the restaurant will definitely win you over. Like so many places in the Chinatown/​Little Italy area Abyssinia is a hidden gem that is a little bit off of the beaten path and may appear to be a little bit run down at first glance but reveals itself to be a charming and high quality family-​run restaurant.
The menu consists of a number of Ethiopian delicacies featuring lots of lamb options with beef, poultry, and vegetarian options as well. The dishes are all richly flavoured and priced reasonably enough for you to be able to try many different options. There are also combo platters that will let you try all kinds of things from the plethora of options available.
A friend and I split 2 vegetarian platters ($ 13 each) which were comprised of 6 dishes, a little bit of salad, and a generous amount of injera (thin, spongy sourdough flatbread) to eat it all with. Each dish was full-​flavoured and tasty, utilizing different ingredients including lentils, peas, corn, cabbage, potatoes, leafy greens, and a whole lot more. All of them were unique and it was difficult deciding which was our favourite as we tore off piece after piece of injera to scoop up each type of tasty wat.
The service and presentation at Abyssinia were fantastic. The staff was kind and helpful, offering explanations about the dishes whenever we needed it. As is common for Ethiopian restaurants, the meal was served on a large round plate with each dish sitting atop a layer of injera and additional rolls of injera placed around the outside. The colourful palate of the plate, great service, and comfortable, spacious interior more than displaced my initial trepidations about the exterior of the restaurant.
I’m anxious to return to Abyssinia not only because of the quality of my experience but also because of what I missed. I dined there on a Tuesday and sadly missed the opportunity to try their buffet. They offer buffets on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. The Wednesday and Friday buffets are vegan while the Saturday buffet is for omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike. They also offer an Ethiopian coffee ceremony by reservation which sounds truly awesome. My dinner there was fantastic but I have a feeling their buffet and coffee ceremony might be even more memorable.
Abyssinia may not be in the trendiest neighbourhood or look like much at first but the restaurant’s tasty, affordable food and the prospect of buffets and ceremonies will ensure another trip there from me.

We went to the restaurant on a Saturday evening and took the buffet. The buffet has quite a few choices for both, vegetarians and non-​vegetarians. The restaurant appears to be a family run restaurant, which is nice in way. The setting is pretty informal. The food tastes good and the injera were soft. This food tastes quite similar to Indian food, so I enjoyed it thoroughly. I would recommend this restaurant to those who want to taste Ethiopian food for the first time.

I came here for the Saturday night buffet. Adults $ 20, kids 6+ $ 10, kids under $ 6 free. There are about 10 — 12 buffet items. The buffet is simple, but they have enough for everyone. The lentil dishes and potatoes are really good and I recommend them. The beef dishes are okay as they use average cuts of beef (a bit stringy), but still have good flavor. The lamb dishes are good and nicely seasoned. Service was good, very friendly and restaurant is not too large so it feels quite quaint inside. Anyways, I gave it a 3 star because I probably would not go back as the food was good, but not anything that was so good I had to come back and get more if you know what i mean. I would recommend people try it at least once to experience some different spices and cooking styles.

Do not let the looks of this place deter you! It’s worth the visit. I had the vegetarian platter for take out tonight. I have tried every Ethiopian resty in the city and I think this is my new favourite!!! It’s very authentic and fresh. While I was basically just in and out, I must say the owners seem super friendly. It’s almost home-​y inside. I just found out they have Vegan buffets every Friday from 5 – 9, and regular buffets on Saturday. Their injera — to die for by the way. I will definitely be back, perhaps even weekly. #1 hidden gem!!!

I had heard about their Friday night vegan buffets and was excited to try it out. It was advertised as starting at 5 pm, but my friend and I arrived after 5:30 pm and no food was out. In fairness, the restaurant was empty except for a few people drinking at the bar and we were told they don’t bring out any food until people arrive so it’s fresh and doesn’t get cold. We were fine with that, and waited about 5 – 10 minutes for them to set out the buffet table. By this time, quite a lot of people had shown up and a nearly empty restaurant became almost full. The food is traditional style Ethiopian with injera bread and all dishes were vegetable based, mostly lentils, beans, spinach, potatoes and salads. I actually am unsure of the names of the dishes because there were no labels, but it was all delicious. The spices and flavours of the dishes were excellent, I just wanted to eat more of everything. The service was friendly and efficient. Décor and atmosphere is a little lacking, but to be honest that doesn’t matter. The food was amazing and I look forward to coming back.