Abyssinia Afrikaans Eet-Cafe

If you aren’t a fan of eating with your hands then steer clear of this wonderfully interesting restaurant.
I’ve never had Abyssinian food (infact just had to google it and turns out it’s Ethiopia primarily)
Inside Abyssinia it’s filled with wicker furniture in and low couches, set up around wicker podiums which you realise later is for serving the communal dishes. the walls are covered in plaster and stone, so it does feel in many ways that you are sitting in an African lodge somewhere if it wasn’t for the street view of dutch terraces and trams out the window. It really did feel like a little refuge in the city.
That’s important to point out. This place is for sharing if you don’t like to share your meal I would suggest you make that clear to your waiter, otherwise regardless of what you order it will appear on a large metal dish covered in the pancakes (called enjera) with the dishes distributed around.
I thoroughly enjoyed the food and eating with my hands. It’s really quite similar in many ways to indian dosa, but with different spices. I normally go for meat dishes but honestly even though that was tasty the mixed vegetables were my favourite. The thick savoury pancakes soaked up up all sauces and so were tasty even on their own.
One other thing I thought was a great touch was a selection of beers common to Ethiopia or the African continent at the very least. I had one which they had on special called Tusker, brewed in Kenya. It was really nice and malty with a sweet honey taste which went well with the curries.
Sadly I missed the coffee ceremony they do on Tuesdays. The only solution really is next time I travel to Amsterdam I will need to plan a return trip on the correct day.

Delicious! Great for sharing and room for dessert. The honey wine is great and the service was fast and friendly.

If you are alone: they don’t want you.
So from the outside, this place is very inviting. I went early since I didn’t have a reservation. The place was completely empty except for 2 tables.
I was taken to the back and shown a table that was near the side entrance and was awkward all around (even for one person). I asked politely if I could have ANY other table then that one. I was told no. I asked if the other tables were all reserved (I can respect that). Answer: «THAT table you can use, take it or leave it»; I ended up eating around the corner at a much friendlier Ethiopian restaurant

Nice atmosphere but everything else was well below average. The service was slow. The food was extremely over priced based on proportion size, which actually turned out to be a blessing. The lamb was horrible. We got a vegetarian sampler and only like 1 dish, as all the others were bland and uninteresting. In short stay away. Major disappointment. I’m honesty wondering how they stay in business.

I’ve been to another African restaurant before and there I had an amazing experience, so this might be a biased review because I am comparing the two places. Well I will try to give the best overview of it. The place itself is very cozy, nicely decorated in authentic African style. There is a more relaxed area at the front, with big couches and low tables which is ideal for big groups and when you are having only drinks and appetizers. For diner I would suggest the tables on the back. We order the main dish that comes with all the house specials. I like the concept that you share the plate with whoever is eating with you and that you use your hands to eat. Maybe we were very unlucky that day, but the meat and chicken dish was really dry, and the pancakes that comes with it had a weird taste. The best thing of this evening was having a very kind and sweet staff member that was very apologetic when we addressed our opinion about the food. Ow and I almost forgot, the bathroom is extremely cold. Not sure if I will give it a second chance, specially when I know that there are other places with the same cousin that have impressed me much more.

It’s delicious! I think it’s the best ethiopian in the neighborhood. It’s always busy and they are very friendly. Highly recommended!

This is my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Amsterdam. It’s always full, no matter what day of the week, but they somehow manage to find tables for everyone. It’s very atmospheric and the food is excellent. I always eat too much and then regret it, but somehow never learn. Go here. Wash your hands first. Dig in. Enjoy.

Putting the «What do Ethiopian people eat? Air!!!» jokes aside, I LOVE ethio food.
I know I say that about everything, but put some different colour mush on some sponge bread and you’ve got a winning combo that ranks at the top of my favorite cuisine list!
Different colours of mush?!?, you ask?
Yes, my Unilocal friends. If you’ve never had Ethiopian, it’s TIME!
Let me help you order to save you some time!
1. Get the meat combination
2. Get the veggie combination
3. For the meat combination, ask for the kitfo (spicy ground beef) to be raw — it’s how the Ethios eat it!
4. If you like extra spice, ask for «mitmita». They usually don’t give it to you, but if you ask for this spicy powder, you’ll leave with a runny nose and a tingling mouth!
5. The coconut/​mango/​banana beers are NOT Ethiopian… but it’s fun to drink from a coconut shell so why not. The banana is really sweet so beer fans beware!
6. For this location, make a reservation as they get buuuusy!
7. Since you’ll be eating with your fingers, don’t forget to ONLY use your right hand!!!
I would like to give this location four stars because they have the really flavorful piles of colourful mush and a VERY nicely decorated interior, however, now that this is THE ethio place most people go to, it’s become a little too commercialized and service has gone down because they know that they will always be packed. You’ll still have a great meal here, especially if you follow my seven steps above, but for the more gezellig family style, you might want to try elsewhere. Just saaaayyiiiiiiin

Although the food was really a good try and the atmosphere was very Ethiopian the service was super slow… It’s worth the visit just don’t go hungry

We ordered the meat and vegetarian combinations and added one lamb dish to the meats. I thought the food was overall tasty, with some dishes quite flavorful and others a bit boring. The service however was pretty bad… It was quite the task to get their attention! I’m used to it by now in Amsterdam, but in comparison, at Axum, the owners sat down with us with photo albums to explain more about their culture and traditions… that’s more like it for an Ethiopian evening!

The vegetarian offerings were better than the meat. Lots of food. African beer. Not very spicy. Attentive staff.

I was really looking forward to eating here but I won’t be going back to this resto, which feels like a schlepped together place without much professionalism. Diners eat with their hands, which is pretty cool and made me sure the staff would offer at least a bowl of water for people to wash their hands in. Alas, you get ONE cheap paper napkin for the entire hand-​eaten meal! You don’t even get one of those cheap disposable hand wipes or anything before, during or after the meal.
You don’t get good value here as the portions are pretty small, making 13 € for a meal just too expensive; I left feeling hungry and had to eat again when I got back home. I’m not sure if our waiter was just tired or uninterested in our order because no matter how clearly I tried to say anything to him he just looked at me blankly. Even when I pointed at the menu he still seemed confused by «I’ll take this one here, number 12» or whatever number the Halibut in the *meat* menu was. I didn’t taste any fish in the red sauce, which did taste good though the cheese around it, which wasn’t listed in the meal description, felt gross in my mouth with a texture that might be like whipped playdough with a hint of saliva.
The honey wine was really good but the Porto was terrible. The other dishes were good and everything’s a bit spicy. There was a lot of lemon in the sauces, which I liked but a woman in my party thought was too strong.
The décor is pretty cool and makes you feel as though you were sitting outside African huts but nobody seems to have figured out that setting a +/​-​30″ dish for 5 people doesn’t work very well in a 36″ wide table. Btw, you only get to sit in the low tables on the floor in the front room and in the back one, where I was, it’s just small café tables unfit for the type of group hand-​eating dining style. When we finished our meal the waiter didn’t take a single empty glass off the table.