Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant — Restaurant in London

This spot has been on our list for a longtime and we were super excited to try some Ethiopian food for the first time - and what a disappointing experience.

Firstly, there was no water offered. No cutlery was laid and neither was any form of hand sanitiser/ towels given. The lack of hand hygiene made us pretty uncomfortable as the food needed to be eaten by hand.

The food was average - but extremely oily. (Again no hand towels after the meal - just a paper napkin)

The worst was yet to come. THEY ONLY ACCEPT CASH!!! They don’t even inform guests before offering food that this is a cash only place. Very surprising as almost every place I’ve been to accepts contactless/ bank transfers or informs BEFOREHAND that it’s cash only.

The waitress refused to accept a bank transfer as her manager was on a holiday. My partner was forced to back home to get a card, withdraw cash and pay the bill.

We live around 20 mins away and no regard was given to this - I was made to wait for 40 mins while my partner returned - this could have been avoided if the waitress accepted the bank transfer.

Oh did I mention - I was not even offered water during the 40 min wait.

The cash operation seems very shady. Will not be coming back here. The worst dining experience in London so far. Pathetic. Extremely low regard for customer experience.

The ups - good music and...

I love Ethiopian very much and this place has given me good Ethiopian. However after coming here for more than a year or two every few weeks I just can’t go again and it’s mostly because the staff are so unpleasant. You are not allowed to sit at the nicer, larger tables (the small tables are far too small when they serve everything in giant platters) unless you are in a group (which I have never seen eat there once but apparently they need all of them free just in case). The food itself is actually quite variable, one day is delicious and another watery and not much taste. The serving sizes are different based on the mood of your particular server (I always ordered the same mixed platter for too and a chickpea stew but this sometimes was not enough for myself and my dinning partner and other times far more than enough). And they are just very uninterested in how your food or experience was. I think it may just be a case of a small family operation pretending to be a professional restaurant but it’s sadly not near the standards of Ethiopian...

Lovely Ethiopian restaurant. Great place for an introduction to Ethiopian cuisine. Three of our party had never tried Ethiopian food before, but were very much impressed.

We got some lamb samosas and the cottage cheese with injera to start. Then for mains we ordered two sharing platters on injera to share (one meat-based, one veggie).

This was a great way to try many different dishes.

We then got dessert accompanied by a traditional coffee ceremony - we felt we couldn’t leave without trying coffee from its birthplace. The ceremony involved wafting the scent of roasting coffee our way and the burning of frankincense as we drank.

Really great experience - the guy who served us was friendly and the atmosphere is lovely too. Well decorated with a range of ornaments and art representing Ethiopia’s cultural heritage.

Would...