Menelik

Tasty Ethiopian fare just as good and cheaper than other Ethiopian places nearby. It is NOT CLOSED so not sure why Unilocal thinks so. I just called and made a reservation.

On the outside, the storefront is under construction/​empty, so the place looks like a dump. In fact, I thought the restaurant was closed as I walked up to it. But there’s a door on the side that leads you in to the small and reasonably well-​kept restaurant.
There were only a couple other people in the restaurant, who looked like friends of the owners as they were chatting away the evening. Football was on, so we all watched it on the TV as we waited for the food.
We ordered a round of food for the table, mixing vegetable and meat dishes for our group of 6. The food was excellent and flavorful. I enjoyed the lamb more than the chicken.
They do not accept credit cards! I think they should have a sign saying so.

My partner and I lived in London for a year and spent a lot of time trying to find delicious, slightly out-​of-​the-​way, authentic places where you could eat without breaking the bank. Menelik is definitely the best restaurant we found.
The food is wonderfully spiced — flavourful, subtle, balanced — and extremely reasonable. The service, while occasionally a little on the slow side (or sometimes surprisingly speedy) is always friendly. And the serving staff work so hard! We used to see the same wonderful waitress working no matter what day of the week or whether lunch or dinner — and attending to the whole restaurant (taking orders, relaying them to the kitchen, making drinks, bringing out food, answering the phone) by herself! So it’s no wonder that perhaps the service suffered. But you don’t come here for fancy-​pants service, right? It’s the incredibly delicious Ethiopian food — better than poshed-​up versions near Tufnell Park or even the restaurants in Cricklewood — which is fresh, served with a smile, and out-​of-​this-​world delicious.

I’ve realised that I need to write shorter reviews, cos I write the way I talk, you know. a lot! So let’s summarise this mo-​fo.
1. It’s on my street, I walk by it constantly. But would never have gone in. Why?
2. Looks kinda dodgy from outside.
3. Definitely a local for locals vibe. But I am local?
4. Err has a weird, not pleasant smell.
5. But very nice staff.
6. However very slow staff.
7. Real slow kitchen staff
8. The Food! Interesting giant pancake thing.
9. Topped with bowls of spiced, curry-​esque foodstuffs
10. Gorgeous cottage cheese, spinach vegetarian dish
11. Pancake was cold, really would have be better heated
Umm 11 points, my brevity needs work.

Realy authentic experience. the communal dining style really was great to get sociall. Everyones’ orders were served on a large Injera (like a massive savoury pancake) which was shared between about four people so we could dig in to our neighbours’ orders too.
lamb dishes where superb and the lentils where equally good. What really was a peasant surprise was the careful engineering of the mix of spices i thought had a subtle balance not one was overpowering –just a perfect mix!
it certainly left me wanting more and i kept eating till i was defeated! I wanna go back NOW!

I had Ethiopian food once before, but it was vegetarian and we didn’t eat from a giant shared pancake. That made it way less awesome than my meal at Menelik, which included meat and eating with hands. Epic.
I like the idea of dumping chicken and lamb and sauce and cheese and egg over a giant injera and just feasting. The dark brown sauce on the chicken was really tasty: thick, sweet, and spicy; it reminded me of mole sauce. I will definitely return for more.

So I’ve been here twice now – the first time as a couple and the second time as a huge-​ass group meetup (thanks Unilocal!).
Ethiopian food is likely to be polarizing. Remember that scene from Along Came Polly where Jennifer Aniston was freaking out Ben Stiller by eating greasy spicy food with her fingers, not unlike a feral child being reintegrated into society? This is that kind of place.
Every savoury dish is some kind of jumble of meat, veggies, and nondescript brown sauce. Although they do have pure veggie options (the spinach + cottage cheese resembles indian palak paneer). I don’t know what the #10 lamb dish was exactly but it was definitely a winner.
First they come out with these big silver platters of injera (sour sponge bread). Then they come out with the dishes themselves and dump them on top of the injera. They also provide baskets of injera strips rolled up like toilet paper, so you can rip these into little shreds and use them to scoop up the food. If you’re not completely stuffed by the time you eat what’s on top of the injera, you can start attacking the greasy injera underneath that’s been soaking up sauce which is really yummy.
It’s definitely something to try at least once… great as a group outing (assuming you’re all comfortable enough scooping sans-​cutlery from a communal plate).

Hmmm… I am torn on how to review this place. The concept is totally my kind of thing: No cutlery, everyone feeds from the one big plate, tearing off strips of injera like jackals stripping a carcass in the wild. The weak are left hungry if they aren’t willing to get involved with the bigger beasts. Just dive in and lick your fingers clean… Magic!
The service doesn’t win any style points, and things seemed to drag, but we were a table of twenty so I could potentially overlook this. What edges me to differ is whilst everyone was getting their Bati beers with some haste, my orange juice sat on the bar out of my reach for about 10mins on both of the times I ordered a drink. At £1.18 a glass, I won’t complain too much though.
Menelik is a cheap restaurant with no frills, but an authentic offering that is worth trying at least once. There is a distinct possibility that some people will love it for the social, eating with your hands culture, whilst others I feel may be a little less enthused. The food is tasty and I’d recommend the sharing platter for £21.50 that serves three people. You get to try five or six different dishes, that get plonked onto your injera, which for all purposes, looks and tastes like a tangy, sourdough pancake.
I will try Ethiopian food again but I’d unlikely come back to Menelik.

Im a fan on Menelik and the ethiopian way of eating.
Everybody eats from the same plate, that consists in a huge pancake called «injeera». As dishes come to the table, all the food is placed over the enjeera; to eat it, you wrapped pieces of meat, fish or veg in enjeera and eat it with your hands.
Nice, healthy and earthy food to share with friends. I also love the «coffee ceremony»: the coffee is toasted and brought to your table so you can feel the smell, and its served in a lovely coffee pot along with inciense and sugar. If you are a coffee lover, I am sure you will enjoy it.
If you are looking for a non conventional meal, give this a try! its not only food, its a experience!

By far the best Ethiopian in London. We discovered by chance a few years back, and have tried many other Ethiopian restaurants in London and elsewhere, and Menelik beats them for value and taste hands down. I live in Kentish Town, with Lalibela and Queen of Sheeba both a 3 minute walk away, and I still go to Menelik.
If you are looking for a fancy place, then don’t go to Menelik, but if you are after authentic and tasty Ethipion food for about a fiver a head, then you won’t go wrong with this place.

It took a long time to get our food, but we enjoyed it and have returned a few times. The smell of incense can be a bit intense, but prices are very reasonable for tasty food.

In the middle of Caledonian Road, between anonymous Chicken shops and bookies, lies this great little Ethiopian restaurant. On entering, I was enveloped with the aromas of freshly roasted coffee and the burning of frankincense, before being eagerly seated by the enthusiastic members of staff.
The menu at Menelik was quite varied, plenty of dishes for veggies and carnivores alike. I’m not familiar with Ethiopian cooking, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. I plunged in at the deep-​end, however, by having the raw steak marinated in hot spicy sauce. The waitress did issue a caveat as to the spiciness of the dish, but I’m a chilli addict so brushed such folly aside. At the end of the night, my mouth was an endorphin rush of ecstatic fire.
The others in my party had a mildly spiced lamb dish (served on it’s own charcoal heater to keep it warm), as well as a mixed plate of the veggie options. I tried each of these and was suitably impressed.
The key to the cuisine is that it’s all served with a giant shared pancake between you. This is made with some kind of sour dough, so is more savory than sweet, but it complements the tastes of the dishes really well. The pancakes are also served in a side bowl, more than you could possibly ever eat. Much like a chappati, you use the pancakes to scoop up the food, making sharing much easier and, in my opinion, more fun (eating with my hands reminds me of being a kid at birthday partys, with hands full of jelly and squirty cream).
You can also opt to have the coffee ceremony at the end of the meal. Here, fresh coffee beans are roasted, the pot used to roast them is rushed out for you to smell. Then, thick, strong and rich coffee is served with burning Frankincense on the side. It’s quite an experience to have someone rushing at you with a red hot pan of smokey coffee, I can tell you
The whole meal (3 main dishes, 6 beers and the coffee ceremony) came to just under £45. The food was delicious and the staff were so friendly and efficient. I left with a warm glow in my heart about this place that, unlike the fire in my mouth, still hasn’t subsided.