When you’re eating Ethiopian food, the utensils are always included. Of course I’m referring to injera, the spongy flatbread served with almost every Ethiopian meal. Sometimes rolled, sometimes folded, the bread made from fermented teff flour is your tool to scoop up stews like doro wot (chicken in a berbere sauce), gomen (collard greens) and spicy misir (lentils).
What I especially love about this vehicle of consumption, aside from eating with your hands, is how easy it is to combine flavors. You can tear a piece of injera and try a bit of spiced lentils, then saucy beef stew, then both at the same time. If a dish is missing acid, you can correct that with some tart green salad.
Ethiopian restaurants in the Bay Area are concentrated in three hubs: San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. The Ethiopian population in the Bay Area is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, settling primarily in Oakland and San Jose around the 1980s. Many of these restaurants have been around for decades and double as community spaces to drink spiced tea, eat and hang out. There are also Eritrean restaurants, like Alem’s Coffee in Oakland, that offer Ethiopian dishes to serve the wider East African community.
Although Ethiopian food can include a lot of meat, the cuisine is naturally vegan- and vegetarian-friendly, and often those meat-free dishes end up being the highlight of the meal. Almost all Ethiopian restaurants here offer an equal number of meat and vegetarian options, including combination platters that let you sample the menu. Certain places have different strengths: Moya in San Francisco makes phenomenal, heavily spiced mushroom tibs; Abesha in Oakland offers exceptional kitfo (raw, spiced beef); Katenega in San Jose delivers succulence with beef sauteed with veggies and rosemary; and LeYou in San Jose takes a more contemporary approach with smaller plates like toasted injera.
Each of these dishes, among many others, captures a different facet of joy in Ethiopian food, which is best experienced firsthand and, ideally, with a group.
For more food recommendations, check out our picks for the best Italian restaurants and the best tacos. If you want the best of the best, check the top 25 best restaurants the Bay Area has to offer.
Insights on Northern California’s culinary scene, from the Chronicle Food team
Credits
Reporting by Cesar Hernandez / Associate Restaurant Critic. Visuals by Chronicle Photo Editors, Photographers, and Contributors. Editing by Janelle Bitker and Caleb Pershan. Audience engagement by Jess Shaw and Erika Carlos. Project management by Brittany Schell / Hearst DevHub. Design and development by Danielle Rindler / Hearst DevHub and Evan Wagstaff / Hearst DevHub. Powered by the Hearst Newspapers DevHub.
Originally published on Feb. 21, 2023
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