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Top 5 Ethiopian restaurants in Chicago

Food writer Steve Dolinsky shares his picks for the five best Ethiopian restaurants in Chicago. (Be prepared for a trip to Edgewater/Uptown.)

By  Steve Dolinsky
   
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Top 5 Ethiopian restaurants in Chicago
Ethiopian platter at Ras Dashen

Some would say New York chef Marcus Samuelsson should get some credit for making Ethiopian sexy. I say tear me off a piece of spongy injera, scoop up a mildly spicy berbere-laced doro wat (stew) and pass the intense, earthy coffee, and you won’t need a celebrity chef to convince you this is seriously delicious (although the man did look fine at the Beard Awards on Monday, kind of like an Ethiopian Ricardo Montalban, a la Fantasy Island). The mere act of feeding your dining partner with your hands should be foreplay enough.

Chicago isn’t blessed with Ethiopian joints like, say, the Adams Morgan ‘hood in D.C., but we do have some gems. Five, to be exact. It doesn’t hurt if you live in Edgewater/Uptown:

1. Ras Dashen, 5846 N. Broadway, 773-506-9601

2. Demera, 4801 N. Broadway, 773-334-8787

3. Ethiopian Diamond, 6120 N. Broadway, 773-338-6100

4. Lalibela, 5631 N. Ashland, 773-944-0585

5. Abyssinia, 5842 N. Broadway, 773-271-7133

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