Massawa

Amazing service & staff. Super tasty, hearty vegan fare! Such a gem. If you’ve never eaten Ethiopian, this place is a must try! Get the combo platter and share with the table. Eat with your hands (they give you towelettes after the meal;)!

Friendly service, yum food. Dim light creates a little mystery. Had the veggie plate, thoroughly enjoyed the chickpea.

First time of Ethiopian food try was here. Not a fan then. But like it later. Cat fish is not a good choice, but the rest are all quite good.

Everything was GREAT! Thank you for having VEGAN options on behalf of the vegan community in the Upper West! Great service, atmosphere is cozy, and left with a very full happy belly!

The food is really great. I love the monkfish tebsi. But we waited for our food for… forever. Maybe it’s because there were 15 of us and the restaurant wanted us to have our food at the same time?

I hosted a large, important dinner last night at Massawa and it was an absolutely fantastic experience. The food was great, the service was excellent, and the atmosphere was just what I wanted for the group – community-​focused with a sense of home. I can’t recommend this place enough and I look forward to going back. My guests all left very full and happy.
If you are getting dessert, try the rum cake. Outstanding!

I’ve never been disappointed by Massawa. Whatever you choose, it’s always tasty and service is nice. Go with friends to share a big «Ethiopian crêpe» and try as many things as possible.

Perhaps Ethiopian food is not for me, but I thought the food itself was only okay. However, I felt like I got an authentic first Ethiopian food experience :) I will have to try other Ethiopian places and see!

This is my go to place for really great Ethiopian/​Eritrean dishes in NYC. I prefer their lamb combo (which you can also get vegetarian or other meats such as chicken or beef). I enjoy choices and the more you give me the better, so a combo dish is always a win in my book. Not to mention they include additional sides with your enjera, which can include greens, salad, shiro (pureed chickpeas), cabbage, potatoes w/​carrots. The services is great, and the coffee is a must. Two thinks that I enjoy about eating Habesha dishes, I get to eat with my hands and I get to enjoy a cup of their amazing coffee come meal end.

My cousin has lived in the Bronx for a while now & when I told him I was coming to visit in Harlem, he said we HAD to come here. He said «you gotta eat with your hands» I’d had Moroccan food where we had to sit on the floor so of course I was game lol This was my first time (if memory serves me correctly) having Ethiopian/​Eritrean cuisine.
He & I had the vegetable & Massawa (meats) combo on one big plate/​injera bread & it was AMAZING. I like spicy food but nothing was as spicy as maybe I set my mouth up for. Everything was EXTREMELY tasty. We had so much food we had to get more bread lol I also had a glass of the Ethiopian Honey Wine (Tej) which I am on a serious hunt for. I must have a bottle of this lol
It’s a cute little spot w nice dim lighting, very cozy. It wasn’t packed so we were seated immediately & they had a friendly staff

This was my first time trying Ethiopian food and I found it to be a little too sour. Some of the veggie dishes I had were flavored really well but others were just okay. Some of it just lacked flavor. Overall, not sure how to feel about this place.

This place is so good — I think it is the best Ethiopian restaurant I’ve tried so far.
I’ve been here a couple of times now — I’ve tried a beef dish with chick peas and it had so much flavor. It came with cabbage salad and another side salad on injera. Had an African lager on the side (forget the name) that was good as well.
The other time I got another beef dish that came with salad for lunch.
I also like that you can either get everything together to share or get it on individual plates.
Also they get 5 stars because I ordered ginger tea and it is FRESH ginger tea. Nice and spicy. I am a ginger tea fanatic as well as an expert in this domain.

The way they present food is so interesting. I made my hands messy when trying to pick up food by hand, but had so much fun! The bean sauce is awesome!

Alitcha Beghe-​I don’t really enjoy the flavor but I guess it’s pretty authentic Ethiopian food. The injera sourdough flatbread is so sour, although it looks like a more exquisite version of pancake with a lot of small holes. The green salad is sour too. The bean-​like stuff in tomato sauce tastes good, mushy and mild. The lamb has a heaven-​like taste by itself, but the onion sauce ruins it. Great service and ambience.

My first time eating Ethiopian or Eritrean cuisine. It was a Saturday so I was thinking it could be busy so we called ahead and were given a reservation.
As soon as I arrived I really enjoyed the intimate setting and décor. We were seated with no problems and the staff was very friendly.
To begin I ordered the African beer of the day which was Called Asmara. Which is also the capital of Eritrea, I enjoyed the taste. The next thing was order the messawa and veggie sampler which is bits of meat and vegetables and you use the bread to scoop it up. I enjoyed this and the bread to me tasted good.
We were 4 people, who all left feeling full and pleased. Really looking forward to coming again!

One of my favorites in the area. Great lunch special and food always served hot and fresh.
The salmon is my favorite. The spices are perfect. Lamb is also tasty — the meat seems to melt in your mouth in the best way.

I really wanted to like this restaurant. Especially since it is an African owned business. However the food is always mediocre quality and the service is worse.
Massawa employees act uninterested, or like they don’t have time to talk to you about what you might be ordering. Because of that, your dining or ordering experience is already reduced by like half. As another review stated, the meat they use seems to be the cheapest and the worst cuts. They do not provide a practical amount of injera, forcing you to have to ask for more. They seem like a really cheap establishment; one time I ordered from them and was supposed to get a meat combo and two sides. They only gave me one side… Needless to say, I haven’t been back since.
There must be better Ethiopian dining experiences in the city.

Very nice Ethiopian restaurant! The food is served with their bread (wrap?) and you use your hands to eat the meat. The bread tastes sour at first but after getting used to it it tastes good.
I had spicy lamb, mild lamb and massawa combo and mild lamb is definitely the best. The meat is very soft and well marinated. In some sense, it tastes similar to Korean galbi but the way to eat is different.
Servers are nice and the place is small but cozy.
Don’t forget to wash your hand before you eat! Restroom is downstairs.

I love love looove Ethiopian food, and Massawa is one of the better options you can find in the city.
They have a pretty large selection of dishes, ranging from different protein meals to vegetarian meals.
While their portions don’t seem too big at first (partially due to the large injera spread that dwarfs their actual meat and sauce portions), it definitely fills you up fast.
Their Tsebhi Beghe, or spicy lamb, is probably my favorite. It’s not too gamey, and offers just enough resistance to be satisfying. The berbere sauce it’s simmered in is also extremely delicious and addicting.
I’m also a fan of their injera, which is spongy enough to soak up all that delicious sauce. The sour flavor is also pretty pronounced, and helps balance out all the other flavors. It is, however, a bit too thin, breaking apart multiple times when trying to pick up pieces of meat.
That aside, my only issue with this place, and Ethiopian food in general, is that they tend to be pricier than other types of food.
I’d recommend coming here for their lunch deals, as they’re just as good as the dinner options, only much cheaper.

Went here a few weeks ago with a couple of friends and we all agreed that it’s a pretty solid Ethiopian place. The prices are fair for an Ethiopian place, and the service was alright.
As for the food, I got the vegetarian combo. Overall, it was good, but some were definitely better than others. Their shiro was GREAT, in my opinion– very flavorful and by far the best of the three. The alacha was fairly good, but I could have gone without. I actually liked the alacha more when I mixed it with one of the other three. Lastly, I thought the tsebhi wasn’t good and really couldn’t eat it without mixing it with the other two.