Massawa — Restaurant in Paris

We have now tried three different Ethiopian restaurants in Paris, and have spent a month traveling around Ethiopia in addition to having g eaten Ethiopian food in amongst and with the Ethiopian community in the U.S. for over twenty-five years. Of the three restaurants we tried Massawa is definitively the best and most authentic. It is the only one of the three to use true injera (the crepe-like base on top of which all of the ingredients are served). Without injera, Ethiopian food just isn’t Ethiopian to me; think substituting cous-cous for rice in sushi. Meanwhile, the use of authentic spices was also most evident here. Everything seemed freshly cooked, which most certainly wasn’t true in one of the other most highly rated Ethiopian restaurants, while in the other one (also extremely highly rated) there were hardly any of the true spices used that make Ethiopian food so remarkable—even though several reviewers used the word “authentic”. Have they never had true Ethiopian food or are they simply friends of the owner, trying to be nice? I don’t need to know. This place is very good, and very authentic, though the spinach “gomen” was the one dish which seemed truly lacking in Ethiopian flavor.

I should add that there was a dish in the menu I’ve never seen before, possibly typical of a region we haven’t visited, or more common in Eritrea (once part of Ethiopia) where the owner is from. It is the dish that looks a bit like humus but tastes nothing like it. Made from puréed lentils with a nice kick added in the form of some sort of chili pepper, it was...

This place deserves a round of applause for awesome customer service because our waitress was so kind the entire time- even when my dining partner didn't quite like the food. It was his first time having Eritrean food (or anything like Ethiopian food for that matter) and he couldn't get over the taste of the injera. It was too sour for him, which is understandable for somebody's first time.

I really enjoyed the food actually! Everything tasted fresh and like it was made at home. In particular, I liked the cauliflower and the potatoes. We had the lamb as well and it was so good. The chicken leg was also great and had a lot of flavor to it. I thought that everything looked and tasted delicious.

However, since my friend couldn't eat very much, I was left to eat a gigantic portion and didn't feel very hungry to begin with. The waitress was very sad to see that we didn't eat very much and asked us if we would like to try something else. She tried very hard to make things better for my friend, which I thought was very sweet. In the end, she understood and boxed everything up for me to take home with a smile on her face. It was so nice of her and I loved eating the leftovers for dinner and lunch the next day! The food is definitely worth the price- it was enough for three meals! I will...

We came here on New Year’s Eve and had a reservation, luckily, as it was very busy with a lot of families. The menu deal is very affordable, giving you one entree and then your plat being shared on a platter. The owner was kind enough to explain that one element of one entree had meat, having noticed the rest of our order was vegetarian (something not very common in Paris, where meat makes surprise appearances in a lot of dishes!).

We were very pleased and full after our meal. Alcohol is also served but we were in the minority of those drinking - I don’t think this was an issue though. I would definitely come back here and suggest others to...