Nile Ethiopian Restaurant

Got the chef’s special because we wanted to try it all. I have no complaints, all the food was very good. Collard greens were very tasty. Happy customer

Whenever we visit Orlando from South Florida we make sure we eat at Nile at least once, without fail. Ethiopian food is so rare in Florida and in most of the US that you can’t pass up the opportunity to sample this unique cuisine. Food can be ordered either spicy or mild and features meat or vegetarian stews that are eaten communally over a large sourdough pancake (injera) made of high protein teff flour and is eaten with the hands and pieces of extra pancake. Ethiopian Coffee service which is roasted to order is not to be missed.

GF call ahead for teff (gluten free grain) only injera!!! The food us great, the people warm and kind. All delicious the vegeration and meat option, it is so yummy! The restaurant is easy to find downtown Orlando.
If you want to be in for an extra treat ask for the coffee ceremony, they will roast the coffee grain right in front of you and they will serve you coffe with incense in the traditional clay pot. Check the pics!

One of our favorite places within Orlando — it is in the middle of touristy– I drive which is a bit surprising.
We always get the meal for two (~30 $) which is always plentiful and delicious. There typically is no silverware placed with the food which does make it a messy, but cultural experience. Beef kitfo and the collard greens are my favorite with that sour injera bread. They used to serve honey wine with one of the two person specials, but last few times, I think they changed it :(.
Definitely a solid choice if we are in the area :).

Came pretty late 30 minutes before their closing time. The people here seem genuine and happy. When they say authentic Ethiopian cuisine, they mean AUTHENTIC ETHIOPIAN CUISINE!!! prices are decent 10 – 15 $ per entrée. But I have to say. The highlight of the entire experience was their honey wine!!! It’s almost like an Indian style experience where you eat with your hands and use various breads to eat with meats and vegetables. They’re also vegan friendly as well. Cool place to try out and very cozy environment. Lamb was alright but I’ll
Be going back to try their chicken and beef tibs as well!

I will say I love their food and I am Vegan no meat no fish no eggs no dairy. In my daily life I have no oil and no sodium chloride or processed salt. The staff is wonderful. When I order I find I love the food but WAY to much salt in the Collards and the Lentils for what. Some have cleaner taste buds and do not need that much SALT enhancement. It is poison anyway and dehydrates the body. Wish they would stop using so much Salt. One can add some if needed. There is also a to much oil in the cabbage dish. I do love the food my one wish it that they chill out on the Salt and Oil. Many have cleaner taste buds than the one who is deciding how much goes in. I would eat there more often if this was the case. The only reason for 4 stars is to much salt and to much oil. I do not eat any meat so I cannot comment on that but my friends enjoy their dishes too.

I don’t remember the name of the food I tried, but they were aaaaaallll good. Try the mixed plate n of course the honey wine!

Ok, I was a bit skeptical coming here. My husband is half Ethiopian and we’re spoiled with DC’s amazing Ethiopian diaspora. Plus, this is in a strip mall in Orlando… How good could it be?! We couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. The décor and service are authentic and attentive. The food is phenomenal and the Ethiopian coffee is spot on! We will be back again, the next time we visit!

Customer service… 4
Ambiance/​décor… 5
Menu selections… 3.5 they didn’t have much of an appetizer section
Free refills on iced tea… 5
Food presentation… 5
Wait time… 5
Waiting for the check and paying… 5
Food… 3.75 it was good but it was missing a little something, oh I know what it was extra spice, to get that umphf costs $ 1.00 extra smh injera at most places is complimentary and they keep bringing it out at your request. Here… once you eat your basket of 10 which is really 5 cut in ½ you are paying extra. That right there was a turn off especially when you have a lot of food. I couldve polished that off by myself!
Price point per food ratio… 4
Kid friendly… 0 there are no kids menus, kid novelties to keep them occupied, etc. So be prepared to share your dish or order their own at $ 13-​$ 15
The food was tasty and hit the spot. It was very fresh and tasted how I expect Ethiopian food to taste. The customer service was pleasant but that’s as far as it went, it was assumed we knew about Ethiopian food so no «is this your first time dinning with us, can I get you familiar with the menu?» Type of jargon. We knew what we wanted and ordered the beef tibs with gomen, red lentils, and cabbage. The honey wine was the best I have ever had!!! I hate they don’t sell it to take home. Would I come back? Yes if I’m in the Orlando area, it was good. Not amazing, not desta (in atlanta) but it was close enough to satisfy my craving for Ethiopian. My 4 year old loves Ethiopian and he damn near gobbled all my food down and barely saved a crumb for jesus! Lol so the Nile is totally worth checking out.

Honestly I have bookmarked this place for a long time. I love Ethiopian food, and sorely missed it when the sole Ethiopian restaurant in Miami closed many years ago. Since then, whenever I traveled, I would check Unilocal to see if there are any Ethiopian restaurants in the city. I was so thrilled to finally try out this place.
If you haven’t tried Ethiopian, it’s a little like Indian. There are plenty of spices, though different from Indian spices, and can be spicy. Small pieces of vegetables and meats are stewed for a while that they absorbed all the spices and are not quite distinguishable by themselves. And like Indian, it’s vegetarian friendly. And oh, of course, you eat with your hands too.
Usually your entrée is served on top of a fermented pancake bread, injara, and you tear off small corners of it to wrap around a small piece of entrée. You can enjoy the food with their honey wine, or a beer from Ethiopian (which I tried out of novelty but honestly, not a wise idea.)
While I am no expert of Ethiopian food, I have been to a few restaurants, from fancy ones fit for the Queen of Sheba to little family joints. I can’t say Nile is my favorite. The place looks old, and worse, dirty. The food just isn’t very flavorful, as well as a bit overpriced. Maybe this place was once great, but sorry, it’s passed its prime.

My first time and I was delighted by my tastebuds. Husband and I shared the chefs special for two.
I especially enjoyed the lentils. The service was wonderful.
The ladies demonstrated the roasting of coffee beans.
This was the best coffee I have had since returning from Italy. My only complaint is that I’m on vacation and this restaurant is not near where I live

Super nice staff. Slow sevice. The food is great– if you are a fan of ethiopian. I would recommend it. If you never had ethiopian, just ask the staff what to order or go with someone who has.

Thank you Unilocalers for another great recommendation. This place a hidden treasure, tucked away amidst the chain establishments on International Ave (literally next to Buffalo Wild Wings). Couldn’t decide so got the Nile meat combo — doro alicha, beef key wat, beef alicha and zilbo (beef cubes with collard greens) which comes with salad and injera. Which were all amazing!
Mildly spicy but washed down perfectly with some honey wine. This was my first time eating Ethiopian and I loved it. This will definitely be a must whenever we come visit.
Oh yeah, lest I forget you vegan folk. For vegetarians there’s also a ton of options including the delicious Split pea/​kik alicha (yellow split peas). Service and ambience were both good. Our server answered all my questions and always made sure to check on us.

My wife and I have eaten here about a dozen times so far but we were long overdue for a trip here. In the past we would come with the kids and and between the food and the dining experience, we just fell in love with this place. A couple of our «foodie» friends and our new neighbors that are also «foodies» joined us for this trip.
Our neighbors rode with us but our friends were held up in traffic so we had a few minutes to kill. My wife had her fix of Teg which is a wine made from honey and I had my iced tea but unfortunately there was no lime this trip. We chose to have some Kitfo as an appetizer but our server instead brought us an entrée of Kitfo. We assumed our neighbors would help us out but one was a vegetarian and the other did not seem interested in trying something with raw beef.
Kitfo consists of minced raw beef, marinated in mitmita (a chili powder-​based spice blend) and niter kibbeh (a clarified butter infused with herbs and spices). It was quite good but this time it appears the chef did not trim the meat as well as our previous trips because I did encounter a few pieces of gristle mixed in with the meat. It was served with some collard greens and fresh made cottage cheese. The collard greens and cottage cheese go perfectly with the Kitfo.
For our entrees, 2 couples chose the Chef’s Special Combination which contains chicken Doro Wat, Doro Alicha, Beef Alicha, Beef Tibs, Cabbage, Collard Greens, Lentils and Split Peas. The other couple ordered the Taste of Nile Vegetarian which contains Cabbage, Red Lentils, Split Peas, Shiro, Azifa and Tomato Fitfit.
I did not sample the Taste of Nile Vegetarian BUT… our neighbors left that plate completely spotless so I am guessing it was good. They had been here before and that is their selection of choice.
In the past we have tried everything on the menu so we knew what to expect and the Chef’s Special Combination was a home run in our opinion. We were however disappointed that they do not include an egg with the Doro Wat on Chef’s Special. You would never serve it without the egg in Ethiopia.
We followed up with some Ethiopian Coffee but were disappointed that they did not bring the freshly roasted beans to the table before grinding them to make the coffee. That was one of the things we looked forward to every time we came here in the past. I chose the cheesecake to go with the coffee. The combination of coffee and cheesecake is great. I do wish that they would offer some of the more traditional desserts such as Guava Plate Pie or Injera Bread Pudding.
Atmosphere — 5
Authenticity — 5
Service — 3 (Our server seemed to have trouble understanding English at times)
Iced Tea — 3 (Not as strong as it usually is)
Kitfo — 4 (Found some gristle and not as spicy as previous trips)
Collard Green — 4
Cottage Cheese — 4
Injera — 5
Chef’s Special — 4 (Doro Wat not served with egg)
Coffee — 3 (The freshly roasted beans were not brought to the table as done in the past)
Cheese Cake — 5
There have been a few changes since our last trip here. All of the tables are now round making it odd for large groups. The service was a little off this trip compared to previous visits here. They used to roast the coffee in front of all and bring the beans to the table for everybody to smell before grinding them to make the coffee. That part of the coffee ceremony was truly missed this trip. Some traditional Ethiopian Desserts other than Baklava would enhance the experience.
If we had not been here numerous times in the past, we would not have noticed all of the differences. Overall the dining experience was a good one for the group and everybody enjoyed our Ethiopian night out together. In spite of the things I have nit picked, I would recommend this place in a heartbeat. My next step is to take a trip to Ethiopia so I can try some of the other Ethiopian dishes that are not on the menu here…

Amazing authentic experience from start to finish. A warm welcome was provided and we were taken to our table.
I opted for a starter of Sambusa which is a samosa-​like pastry filled with minced beef and served incredibly hot.
Our server explained how Ethiopians eat, without using cutlery. I ate my lamb and vegetable main course this way by scooping the food up with this thin pancake-​like wrap. The lamb just melted in my mouth, is was perfectly cooked. I didn’t have a dessert but I did have a couple of St George’s Ethiopian beers which are fantastic, and not badly priced at $ 4 per bottle.
Nice clean bathrooms and wifi available too. I’ll definitely return here when in Orlando.

My whole party doubted me for bringing them here to eat. Based on the Unilocal reviews I felt confident it would be great and boy was I right! I enjoyed the honey wine while the rest of our table ordered mixed drinks. All of the regular liquor drinks were better than we expected based on the type of restaurant we were in.
For food we started with the vegetarian sambusas and they were outstanding. One of my friends even thought the lentils inside the pastry was meat because it was so flavorful! For our meal we shared the beef tibs special with the lamb dish. We accompanied it with red lentils, collard greens and of course the delicious bread used to pick up your dinner with. Everything was amazing!
My friends were apologizing to me at the end of the meal because they enjoyed it so much! Yay Unilocal

I always have a great experience when I come here. It’s very out of the way from where I live, but it is worth the drive. The workers are always welcoming and really work towards teaching their guests about the culture. They have their main suggestions and really push for the table to share the combination platters.
I prefer the vegetarian platters over the meat ones. The flavors of the vegetarian choices are unique but delicious, and on random days, I crave them. The injera (bread) is used to scoop what you want to eat. We also ordered the honey wine, and I definitely wanted to order three more cups and a few more for the road. It was sweet and refreshing, which was a good contrast to what we were eating. We ordered the large platter and an order of lamb because my friends wanted to try everything since it was their first time. The platter was huge and took up the entire table, which made the experience even more fun.
There were three of us that shared the platter, and we were definitely full once it was finished. The other times I have come to this restaurant, I ordered the individual vegetarian platter and could not move after the meal. Overall, this is one of my favorite places (and experiences) in the Orlando area. Although I have never had Ethiopian food other than from this restaurant, it is worth the money for delicious food.

Boyfriend and I visited while on a quest for Ethiopian food. There were special rooms inside and when I asked the server upon arrival what those rooms were for, she mentioned it was traditional seating. Well of course I wanted an authentic experience and although the server seemed reluctant, she sat us there. All the good is shared on this short table on a tray and you are given no utensils. Ordered the sambusa and it was delicious (can’t go wrong at 2 for $ 3.50). My entrée selection was the Nile Vegetarian Combo ($ 13.95) which was a combo of 1) Split Peas 2) Red Lentils 3) Collard Greens 4) Cabbage. BF ordered the lamb. It comes separated but all in one tray.
A small basket of injera (spongey bread) is provided in rolled up slices. You tear apart the injera to scoop up your selections to eat it. Overall a good restaurant and a unique authentic experience.

I have been craving for Ethiopian food for quite sometime and turned out, Unilocal mobile pointed out that there was one nearby the Orange Convention Center. I requested Über, and viola, there I was!
Their sweet wine called Sambusa was just fantastic. It was quite refreshing. It reminded me of «Fresca Tangerine» with a kicker in half an hour! Yes, liquor was involved! LOL I’d have to say though, my Lamb Special with a side of salad and collard green was just fantastic. I asked my nice waitress where was my fork and she said, «Oh… you eat with your hands, you take the Ethiopian pancake, and pick up the meat and roll and eat!!» Easy enough which is what I did! Great service and great food!
Until then, Cheers! ~ :p

I have been here so many time I cant say. There is always a reason for so many visits to the same restaurant. Its incredible and in this case it is so true. The service here is great. The Ethiopian coffee is awesome and the food is incredible. We always get the meat and veggie combo with honey wine. The honey wine is the best I have yet tasted and the combo is delicious. A variety of lamb, beef, and chicken with some different veggie dishes.
I have eaten Ethiopian restaurant all over the country and this establishment is by far the best in my opinion.