Empress Taytu Ethiopian Restaurant

Specialties: Since 1992, we have been serving traditional, home-style Ethiopian food. We offer a wide variety of gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, and meat dishes that can be spicy, medium or mild upon request. Greater Cleveland's only Ethiopian Restaurant awaits your visit! Traditional basket tables (mesobs) are in the huts to fully experience Ethiopian communal dining if one chooses. Knives and forks are absent from Ethiopian dining (available on request): the food is picked up with pieces of injera, the T'eff-grain flat bread that will hold the various spiced meat and vegetable presentations known as wats. Moist towels for hand washing are brought before every meal. One favorite dish is dorowat chicken in an onion-sweet, spicy, red sauce -ber-bere - no tomato, just a sophisticated blend of spices: red peppers, ginger, garlic, rue-seed, sacred basil, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and bishop's weed among the 14 spices individually prepared and ground together in this exotic blend. Taytu's doorway opens to the mountain highlands of Ethiopia -- Abyssinia as known of old -- fiercely independent, the land of Prester John and '13 months of sunshine', where spices abound and coffee grows wild. The traditions are authentic: tukul huts, mesob basket tables, hand-carved furniture, scenery, people, aromas, food, art, history, and culture of this ancient civilization. Empress Taytu is an unforgettable dining experience. Ethiopian food and service are as unique as the country itself. Established in 1992. Family business since 1992