Adam’s Ethiopian
WHAT: Adam’s Ethiopian Restaurant
WHERE: 86 Brixton Hill, London SW2 1QN
PRICE: £10–14 (Main Dishes)
OUTDOORS: Seating Available
OUR RATING: Do It!
It baffles us that we haven’t reviewed Adam’s Ethiopian Restaurant yet. Hands down our favourite Ethiopian restaurant in London, we love both their takeaway options as well as their dine-in experience. Ethiopian dining is one of the most pleasurable social-dining experiences one can have, and the food at Adam’s is delicious and affordable.
Originally a bakery, Adam’s Ethiopian Restaurant is a family run business in Brixton, and the service is warm, friendly, and completely welcoming. Our first experience of Adam’s was via takeaway during lockdown. Ethiopian food is best enjoyed at table with friends and family, but it works too as a quiet night at home. Whenever we order takeaway the portions we receive are stupendous, giving us food for at least another night that we always look forward too. You can never eat too much Ethiopian food!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the cuisine, it consists of various vegetable and spicy meat dishes (usually in the form of a thick stew termed a wat), on top of a large sourdough flatbread called injera. The usual way of eating is with your right hand, using bits of the injera to pick up little bits of the vegetable and meat.
Now that we’re allowed to dine-in again, we visited Adam’s with two mates, and dined like absolute kings. Our go-to order is usually a meat and veggie combination platter, but since we were dining with a few more people than usual, we opted for picking a couple dishes each (knowing that all would still be served together family-style, as is usual).
For vegetable dishes, some delicious favourites have been the atkilt wot (a mixture of cabbage, carrots, onion, and herbs), ater kik (yellow split pea stew with turmeric), and difin misir wot (lentils in tomato sauce with herbs and spices).
It’s possible to have an amazing vegetarian, or even vegan, feast here, but we must admit we love their meat dishes so can never go without! While the lamb options are superb, we usually frequent their alicha wot (beef stew with spice and herbs), key wot (beef stew with chilli) and doro wot (chicken legs in a spicy tomato and berbere spice blend with a boiled egg). Yum!
Final Thoughts: You can never leave Adam’s Ethiopian Restaurant hungry — we don’t think that’s possible. And while we’re bias with our love of this cuisine, we do think Adam’s is one of the best in London. With it’s huge portion sizes, homey atmosphere, and delicious stews, it’s an absolute must family-style restaurant and definitely one of our favourite food night outs — or in!
P.S.: Long shot, but next time any of our UK crowd are in Chicago, we definitely suggest dining at Ethiopian Diamond, our favourite for Ethiopian cuisine in the city!