The moment you’ve been waiting for is here: the everything-food-and-drink list to end all lists. We’re undertaking a rather ambitious project—a year-long endeavor that lays out our flat-out best picks of the most exceptional culinary experiences in Denver and Boulder.
We’ll cover the usual suspects: tacos and ramen, for example. Pizza and burgers, too. But think of this as the Herculean version of Denver and Boulder’s gastronomic universe. Over the next 52 weeks (give or take), we’ll post 104 different lists, wherein we’ll give you the lowdown on the very best neighborhood restaurants, bottle shops and butchers, food festivals, pop-up dinners, industry nights, cooking classes and kitchen stores, chef counters, spice shops and cake shops, Cuban sandwiches, Chinese hot pots, and even the best food from truck stops. Who knows? We might be compelled to feature a fantasy-filled list of strip club grub that goes beyond thighs and breasts.
At this very moment, though, even while everyone else is obsessed with Pokémon Go (aka, Pokémania), I’m crushing on Ethiopian food. Ethiopian-style dining is a communal experience that’s steeped in tradition and ritual. Platters or baskets, arranged with injera—a fermented, spongy flatbread that’s used in lieu of conventional utensils to grasp the bites of food and soak up the juices from the glorious stews that saturate the bread’s tiny pockmarks— are ceremoniously presented, and then the feast commences. A couple of rules: Wash your hands before you eat, use your right hand to hold the injera and refrain from licking your fingers. It’s tempting, I know, but don’t. And with that, here are our four flat-out best Ethiopian joints in the Mile High City.
The Flat-Out Best Ethiopian Food in Denver
1. Megenagna {306 South Ironton Street, Aurora; 720.532.0266}
It’s unlikely that anyone would call me a creature of habit…unless they knew about my fixation with Megenagna, a restaurant that I frequent, oh, once a week. I discovered it a few years ago while prowling for another Ethiopian joint that has since become a nightclub. What a find.
Homey, with a rather regal dining room showcasing an elegant centerpiece of hand-crafted throne chairs surrounding a mesob—a traditional handwoven, cone-shaped table—and strewn with glossy four-tops sheltered with thatches of palm leaves, it certainly stands out as the most elegant Ethiopian restaurant in the city.
The menu is tidy: a variety of tibs stewed with ribeye, onions, and peppers, (sometimes jalapeños) and berbere, an Ethiopian spice blend tattooed red from a blast of chiles; a vegetarian combination plate of split lentils, stewed yellow peas, aromatic green cabbage, and a simple salad; gored-gored, cubed, raw beef slicked with awaze, a berebere-jolted paste; and kitfo, the siren song of Megenagna. Typically served raw, the finely chopped beef, similar to steak tartare, is soaked with a spiced butter and molded into a bowl mounded with housemade cheese, braised collard greens called gomen and mitmita, a blend of fiery spices, including potent bird’s-eye chiles. The food—all of it—is phenomenal, and there are plenty of gestures of kindness if you’re a novice; the affable servers, who double as hostesses and teachers for the timid, are supremely patient. They’re unfazed by the clock, and if you want to camp out and watch the futbol that’s typically on the television, you wouldn’t be out of place.
Meganagna shares space with an Ethiopian market, which sells housemade injera, a slew of Ethiopian spice mixtures, packages of lentils, baked goods, and fresh cuts of meat.
2. Nile Ethiopian {1951 South Havana Street, Aurora; 720.748.0239}
If you’ve ever been to Nile on a Friday or Saturday night, you’ve witnessed the crush of bodies. It’s chock-full of families, taxi drivers, and raucous groups of Ethiopian immigrants celebrating special occasions, or no occasion at all.
The truth is, this longstanding Ethiopian powerhouse of tender tibs tinged with char (I especially love the lamb), bone-in chicken stew known as doro wat, ruby-red kitfo saturated with herbal butter, and Yetimatim fitfit, fragments of acidic injera mixed with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and parsley, is full of the kind of pulsating energy that’s as exhilarating as the food. If you sit at the bar, which I normally do, you’ll hear the cooks frantically smacking the call bell in the kitchen, a signal that a parade of platters is forthcoming. The call bell swats used to make me jump; now it’s music to my ears. Bonus: Ethiopian beer, wines, and no-nonsense cocktails.
3. Ethiopian Food Truck {303.437.4599}
Civic Center EATS, the thrice-a-week food-truck fanfare that congregates on the concrete swath in Civic Center Park, heralds more than 80 vendors, including the Ethiopian Food Truck. Just look for the boldly striped hues of green, red and yellow, the colors of country’s national flag. The board is simplified: chicken or beef tibs, four vegetarian sides, and sambusa, a fried pastry enveloping onions, garlic, lentils, and jalapeños. The food truck does extremely well by its spiced spinach folded with potatoes and the curried cabbage tangling with carrots and potatoes; both are side dishes that accompany the tibs: red lentils or yellow split peas are the other options.
For ex-pats, the food truck is a taste of home, and the tibs, juicy and seasoned with berbere, are fantastic. The injera, rolled up like fat cigars, provides a tart counterattack to the boldly flavored, butter-rich tibs, which, like everything else here, is boxed in Styrofoam containers. Find a slice of shade under one of the leafy trees in the park and revel in every bite.
4. Queen of Sheba {7225 East Colfax Avenue; 303.399.9442}
Talk about a place that breeds loyalists. This strip mall storefront—its walls dotted with Ethiopian folk art from owner and chef Zewditu Aboye—has cultivated the kind of following usually reserved for pop stars that splash the pages of TMZ. But here, the star is Aboye, who essentially runs a one-woman show, taking her time to produce food from her homeland that’s clearly made with care, passion, and love. Stepping into the endearingly comfortable dining room feels like entering a cozy home, as does the genuine smile that Aboye bestows on her guests, even when the kitchen is on overdrive, which is pretty much a given.
For the record, this is not the place to come when you’re rushed, so take a breather, sip an Ethiopian beer or a glass of honey wine and wait patiently for the home-style dishes that will make you forget about time. The combination plate, served on a ceramic platter generously portioned with both meat-focused and vegetarian dishes, makes for an ideal share fest. Aboye’s collard greens, tender and weeping with garlic, are worth the price of admission.
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