Walk into Addis NOLA on Bayou Road and the first thing you notice, before you even see a menu, is the handwashing station near the entrance. That detail tells you everything about what kind of meal you’re about to have.
This is Ethiopian food, which means you eat with your hands. Injera, the spongy fermented teff flatbread made fresh in-house daily, serves as your utensil. You tear pieces of it to scoop up stews, salads, and tibs, and it soaks up every layer of spice in the process. The bread itself takes close to three days to make properly, which is the first sign that the kitchen here is not cutting corners.
The restaurant is a family operation. Dr. Biruk Alemayehu, a professor at Southern University at New Orleans who left Ethiopia as a teenager, founded it in 2019 with her husband, Chef Jaime Lobo, and their son Prince, who runs the front of house. They opened on South Broad, built a loyal following, and in 2022 moved to their current 2,500-square-foot home at 2514 Bayou Road, a historically Black commercial corridor that Lobo calls the Black Wall Street of New Orleans.
The Michelin Guide recommends starting with the sambusas, golden-crisp triangles stuffed with beef, lentils, or collard greens, served alongside a sweet awaze dipping sauce. From there, the Doro Wot is the dish to order if you want to understand what the kitchen is capable of.
It’s Ethiopia’s national stew, slow-cooked for 24 hours with chicken, caramelized onion, garlic, and berbere, a deep red spice blend of cumin, coriander, ginger, and garlic, finished with a hard-boiled egg on top. The veggie combo is the most popular item on the menu and arrives as a platter of red lentils, yellow split peas, collard greens, beets, and cabbage in a vivid spread of color.
The Mar Mitmita Shrimp pulls in local Gulf shrimp glazed with house-harvested honey, a nod to both Louisiana and Ethiopian ingredients at once.
The coffee ceremony is the other reason to linger. Staff roasts green beans from the Yirgachafe region over an open flame at the dedicated ceremony stage, wafting the smoke through the dining room before the coffee is ground and brewed fresh. Ethiopia is credited as the origin of Arabica coffee, and the ceremony here treats that history seriously. It arrives with house-made ice cream and comes with the kind of slowdown that most restaurant meals don’t allow.
Addis NOLA is at 2514 Bayou Road. Hours are Monday and Wednesday through Friday, 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 10 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed Tuesday. Call (504) 218-5321. Reservations are recommended.
