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Remarkably, there is a half-hour walk along Danforth Avenue, roughly from Greenwood to Coxwell, with six Ethiopian restaurants. Not six restaurants that serve one Ethiopian dish. Six Ethiopian kitchens, most of them making their own injera, several of them Eritrean as much as Ethiopian, sitting within a few hundred metres of each other.
This stretch along Danforth gets called Little Ethiopia, and it is one of the densest single-cuisine strips in the city. It also sits directly east of Greektown, and as most Torontonians know, Greektown absorbs most of the attention and nearly all of the restaurant coverage on that avenue. This list runs west to east along the Danforth, then picks up the three worth knowing about elsewhere. Everything below was checked against current listings. That matters more here than usual, because several of these kitchens keep unusual hours.
One practical note before you go. Injera is the plate, the cutlery and the side dish at once. A platter built for two will feed three people who aren’t very hungry.
Along the Danforth, west to east
1. Lalibela Cuisine, Danforth East
The westernmost of the strip, at 1214, and a reasonable place to start if you have never done this before. The menu is broad without being unfocused: lamb tibs, red lentil wat, chicken firfir.
Firfir is the one to understand. It’s injera torn up and cooked back into the sauce, so you get the bread twice: once as the vehicle, once as the dish. If someone at the table is nervous about eating with their hands, order it and watch them stop worrying.
Address: 1214 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $$ • Google Maps
2. Blue Nile, Danforth East
Blue Nile runs a full coffee ceremony, which is the thing to plan an evening around, not tack onto the end of one. Green beans roasted at the table, ground, brewed and poured in three rounds, and it takes as long as it takes.
The food is the standards done properly, yebeg tibs and doro wat among them. But the ceremony is why you’d choose this one over the five others within walking distance. Don’t order it at 9:45pm on a weeknight when the staff are looking at the clock.
Address: 1260 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $$ • Website
3. Sora Ethiopian, Danforth East
The newest room on the strip and the least written about. On a street this dense, that’s a genuine advantage on a Friday at 7pm.
Less to say about it than the others, honestly, and that’s the point of including it. On a stretch where six kitchens are cooking the same repertoire, the useful information is often just which one has a table.
Address: 1383 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $$ • Google Maps
4. Rendez-Vous Ethiopian and Eritrean, Danforth East
The name does the work. Eritrean and Ethiopian cooking share most of a repertoire and diverge in the details, and Rendez-Vous puts both on one menu rather than picking a side.
Zilzil tibs, strips of beef instead of cubes. Azifa, a cold green lentil salad sharp with mustard and lemon. That’s the dish to order if you think you already know what Ethiopian food tastes like. Portions run generous even by the standards of a cuisine that does not do small.
Address: 1408 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $$ • Google Maps
5. La Vegan Ethiopian and Eritrean, Danforth East
Entirely vegan, which is less of a stretch than it sounds. Ethiopian cooking already has one of the deepest vegan repertoires of any cuisine on earth, because the Orthodox fasting calendar takes meat off the table for something close to 200 days a year.
So the vegetarian platter here isn’t a concession, it’s the main tradition. The interesting order is the kitfo, normally raw minced beef, rebuilt with mushroom. It shouldn’t work as well as it does. Closed Tuesdays. Otherwise it runs to midnight, from 4pm on weekdays and 11am at weekends, making it the late option on the strip. Worth cross-referencing with our vegetarian restaurants guide if you’re feeding a mixed table.
Address: 1450 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $ • Website
6. Wazema, Danforth East
The far end, past Coxwell, and far enough east that it draws from the neighbourhood rather than from people making a trip.
That gives it a different character on a weeknight. Quieter, more regulars, less of the group-dinner energy filling the rooms closer to Greenwood. If the middle of the strip is full, this is a ten-minute walk and usually the answer.
Address: 1690 Danforth Ave • Neighbourhood: Danforth East • Price: $$ • Google Maps
West end and Scarborough
7. African Palace, Bloorcourt
At Bloor and Dovercourt, Eritrean and Ethiopian, and the one people mean when they say there’s good Ethiopian food in the west end.
Tikil gomen, the cabbage and potato dish that sounds dull and anchors every platter it’s on. Yekik alicha, mild yellow split pea. Kitfo if you want the raw version. Dinner only, 4pm to 11pm, Monday to Saturday, which catches people out: there is no lunch here and no Sunday.
Address: 977 Bloor St W • Neighbourhood: Bloorcourt • Price: $$ • Google Maps
8. Nunu Ethiopian Fusion, West Queen West
Three blocks east of Dufferin, between the Drake and the Gladstone. That tells you what kind of room it is: a bar as much as a restaurant, and busiest late.
Evenings only from 5pm, and open until 2am on Saturdays. That last detail is the reason to file this one away. Toronto after midnight is mostly pizza and shawarma, and a plate of tibs at 1am on Queen West is a genuinely better decision than either.
Address: 1178 Queen St W • Neighbourhood: West Queen West • Price: $$ • Website
9. 13 SUNS Ethiopian Café and Eatery, Scarborough
Vegan, on Hymus Road, and the only entry here doing anything genuinely inventive with the format. Tibs in taco shells is either heresy or the most sensible idea on this page depending on your temperament.
The sambusas and the beyaynetu platter are the conventional orders and both are good. It’s a café, not a dinner destination, and Hymus Road is an industrial pocket rather than a strip you’d wander. Treat it as a stop. More of what’s out that way in our guide to eating in Scarborough by cuisine.
Address: 74 Hymus Rd, Unit 4 • Neighbourhood: Scarborough • Price: $ • Google Maps
The efficient way to use this list is to stop treating it as a list. Six of these are inside one half-hour walk, so pick the night rather than the restaurant: a Tuesday rules out La Vegan, a Sunday rules out African Palace, and a late Saturday points at Nunu. Then walk the strip and take whichever room has a table. For the Greek half of the same avenue, our Greektown guide covers the blocks immediately west.
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