The best restaurants serving African food in Bristol, City of South West

Date: 27th September 2024 Cost: £75 for three “Have we got somewhere for dinner?” Mich asked, as we succumbed to the allure of the drinks trolley on the cross-country train to visit Jez, longtime friend, mediumtime Bristolian and, as it turned out, part-time local pub and restaurant guru and guide. “Jez mentioned something about Ethiopian, I’m not sure if he’s booked or anything.” “Well text him! I want to look at the menu.” So I did. The images that appeared upon completion of our search displayed an unassuming exterior perhaps more given to a late-night takeaway, but the inside gave off the impression of eating in someone’s house - cosy, snug and intimate. Stapleton Road was bustling with other East African restaurants, late-night cafes full of people chatting over tea, and butchers, barbers and shops crammed with rugs and floor-to-ceiling stacks of crates of Miranda that all seemed to function more as meeting and gathering points than anything else. But it was quiet in the Real Habesha. And by quiet I mean we were the only ones there. It was by no means an issue that the only atmosphere was the sounds of our own laughter and gossip echoing back off the walls, but I can’t imagine it being an ideal spot for a first date, say. We ordered beers and the incredibly sweet honey wine that still gives me phantom tooth fuzz if I think about it too much, as well as the medium combination chosen on the train: a selection of veggie curries, stews, salads and, well, vegetables with a choice of meats, all served on a giant edible plate of injera. We went for keyh tshebi - beef cubes in a tomato/onion/garlic base - and added on a portion of dorho wot for good measure - chicken legs and boiled egg in a spicy gravy. This arrived in its own dish-atop-a-dish, elevated above the combination as the star of the show that it turned out to be. Spoiler alert! Sorry. Let me rewind to a few confessions: firstly, I was hungry. Not starving, but definitely in the right kind of headspace and tummyspace to put away a fair bit of food. And secondly, I don’t really like injera. It’s fine. It’s just a bit bland and sits quite heavily. Give me rice over any kind of bread with curries and stews every day of the week. But each to their own. Anyway, when the food arrived, as described above but in - to my stomach’s eye - little portions, with an additional basketful of hundreds of injera rolls to top up our overall calories-per-pound, I paradoxically felt a slight disappointment but dived in fingers first. The combination was all nice. It was all nice. But I couldn’t decipher much of a difference between the chickpea one, the lentil one, the other lentil one and actually even the beef one, except for by look and by texture. There was a serving of cabbage and green beans here and a spoonful of rice there, and it all went pretty quickly, but I wasn’t bouncing around the room at any of it. In the dorho wot, therefore, lay my last hope. Out of uncertainty how to share two drumsticks and a whole boiled egg between three without cutlery, it had stayed off to one side until we couldn’t put it off any longer, when we just tipped it into the shrinking injera plate. It was comfortably the highlight. I can remember what it tasted like, for a start: rich, as though the legs had been stewing in the same pot as all the fattier, tastier bits of the chicken, their goodness seeping oozily into into the gravy, and gently spiced with the warmth of a mix containing things like clove and nutmeg and paprika over anything more overtly hot. The meat itself was tender, and the egg was fun to eat - like everything else - using our hands. I was full and satisfied afterwards, but I do think a therapist would read into my gnawing of the leftover drumsticks as indicative of a lack of that of that elusive comestible bliss I was seeking. It’s worth pointing out that the others were both singing the praises of the food, and it would be remiss of me to mark the Real Habesha down for personal preferences, but it was probably the least impressive of anywhere we ate that weekend.

Opposite the Tobacco Factory arts centre in the Southville district, this is billed as a meze restaurant, but portions are generous and flavours delicious. A refreshing lemon and mint spritzer got things off to a good start, quickly followed by tasty and more-ish flatbread with zatar. The excellent falafel came with a delicious green harissa sauce with pomegranate seeds, the aubergine and chick pea dish was just so. And our shared chocolate tart with date sauce and a side of home-made ice cream finished off the meal nicely.

Normally I don't write negative reviews. Absolutely horrendous food, the meat was hard impossible to chew. We feel unwell after the food. It was my first and last time we visited this place.