Guide | Toronto | 8 November 2026
Toronto’s best known cluster of Ethiopian restaurants sits on Danforth Avenue in the city’s east end. The food blog Eat the World TO calls the stretch of the Danforth between Greenwood Avenue and Monarch Park Avenue the heart of Little Ethiopia, a strip that still caters to the city’s East African community with its shops, services and restaurants. Other long running Ethiopian dining rooms are found downtown near Yonge and Wellesley and on Bloor Street West.
This guide covers four Ethiopian restaurants from our Toronto city page, grouped by area. Before adding each one, we checked that it is still open at the address shown, using the restaurant’s own website, current map and review listings, or coverage in the local press. Opening hours change often, so please call ahead or check the restaurant’s own website before you set off.
Danforth East (Little Ethiopia)
Two of the restaurants in this guide are on Danforth Avenue, a short walk apart, between Greenwood Avenue and Monarch Park Avenue.
Rendez-Vous Ethiopian and Eritrean Restaurant, Danforth Avenue
1408 Danforth Avenue, Toronto, ON M4J 1M9. Rendez-Vous has been open since 2001, the restaurant says, and it serves both Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking, with regular live music nights and catering for events. blogTO, which put it first on its February 2025 list of the best Ethiopian restaurants in Toronto, calls it a Little Ethiopia mainstay that is lively and inviting, with family style vegetarian platters and meat combinations for sampling the kitchen’s strengths, and tibs, wot and azifa (a cold lentil dish) ordered on their own for smaller appetites. Its website says it is open every day from 11 AM until late at night.
Wazema Ethiopian Restaurant, Danforth Avenue
1360 Danforth Avenue, Toronto, ON M4J 1M9. Wazema is part restaurant and part night out. Eat the World TO, which visited in April 2025, describes mood lighting, a prominent bar at the front, a stage at the back for live music and decor that recalls the restaurants and bars of Addis Ababa, and it recommends the Wazema Platter, which combines meat and vegetarian dishes on one large injera. blogTO says weekends are busy with live music and a packed house. The restaurant takes reservations, hosts private events and serves specialty cocktails, and its website says it is open every day from 12 PM to 11 PM, with bar hours that may vary.
Downtown, near Yonge and Wellesley
Ethiopian House Restaurant, Irwin Avenue
4 Irwin Avenue, Toronto, ON M4Y 1K9. Ethiopian House sits just off Yonge Street near Wellesley Street, and describes itself as a long standing Toronto institution. blogTO calls it a veteran spot where regulars come for homey dishes and generous hospitality in a colourful room, and names banatu, gored gored, tibs and misir alicha among the dishes to try. Its menu also lists kitfo, offered raw, rare, medium or well cooked, and a vegetarian selection of split peas, chickpeas, lentils, collard greens and potatoes. The restaurant’s website lists hours from Tuesday to Sunday, from noon into the evening, and map listings show it closed on Mondays. It takes reservations and asks takeout customers to call the restaurant directly.
Bloor Street West
Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, Bloor Street West
869 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M6G 1M4. Lalibela describes itself as a family owned and operated Ethiopian restaurant with a full bar, and says it is proud to serve its dishes with traditional Ethiopian hospitality. Besides dining in, it offers pickup and delivery through its own app and online ordering. Its website says it is open every day from 10:30 AM to midnight.
A few tips for first timers
- Most restaurants serve dishes together on one large tray lined with injera, a soft, slightly sour flatbread. Tear off a piece and use it to scoop up the stews; Ethiopian food is traditionally eaten by hand.
- Combination platters are the easiest way to try a range of dishes. Many Ethiopian Orthodox Christians fast from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays and before Christmas and Easter, so every restaurant here serves vegetarian dishes.
- If you need gluten free food, ask whether the restaurant has 100% teff injera that day, since many kitchens also use wheat or barley flour. Ethiopian House, for example, says on its website that its injera is not gluten free.
- Finish with Ethiopian coffee, or try tej, a traditional honey wine, where it is served.
Find more Ethiopian businesses in Toronto
Our Toronto city page lists Ethiopian restaurants, a grocery, a church and a community association in Toronto, and we are adding more listings as we verify them. Know a restaurant we have missed, or spotted a change at one of the places above? Tell us and we will update the guide. Own an Ethiopian restaurant in Toronto? List your business for free.
More guides: Ethiopian restaurants in Denver, Ethiopian restaurants in Los Angeles, Ethiopian restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ethiopian restaurants in London, Best Ethiopian restaurants in Washington DC and Best Ethiopian restaurants in Seattle.
Sources
- Eat the World TO, “Ethiopia: Transported to Addis Ababa”, 24 April 2025 (Little Ethiopia on the Danforth, Wazema): eattheworldto.com
- blogTO, Christine Peddie, “The Best Ethiopian Restaurants in Toronto”, 28 February 2025 (Rendez-Vous, Wazema, Ethiopian House): blogto.com
- Rendez-Vous website (opening year, cuisine, live music, catering, address, hours): rendezvousethiopianrestaurant.com; Rendez-Vous on Yelp (updated October 2026): yelp.ca
- Wazema website (address, phone, hours, reservations, events): wazemaeats.com; Wazema on Yelp (updated October 2026): yelp.ca
- Ethiopian House website (address, hours, menu, FAQ): ethiopianhouse.com; Ethiopian House on Yelp (updated October 2026): yelp.ca
- Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant website (address, phone, hours, ordering): lalibelaethiopianrestaurant.com; Lalibela on Yelp (claimed by the owner, updated October 2026): yelp.ca
Last updated: 8 November 2026. Listings were checked on 8 November 2026. Ethiopialist has no commercial relationship with any of the restaurants in this guide.
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Featured image: 1414 Danforth Avenue, a former bank building at the corner of Monarch Park Avenue on Danforth East, a few doors from Rendez-Vous, in August 2026. Photo: Johnath, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped.