Asmera Cafe

Description: An Eritrean-owned café blending Eritrean and Ethiopian culinary traditions with Middle Eastern influences and Italian coffee culture. The menu features coffee, traditional East African breakfast dishes, croissants, cakes, cupcakes, and pastries including pistachio and chocolate kataifi tarts.

Comments: The food is incredible. The Fata Bani, which I learned is a traditional Eritrean dish, is 10/10. Pieces of bread, eggs, vegetables, and other stuff, idk what it all was, drenched in a tomato-based sauce and served on a plate with some yogurt to dip it in. Twas marvelous. For sure get it. The rest of the food is also really good.

Aside from the great food, they have coffee, matcha, tea, pastries, smoothies, milkshakes, hot chocolate, everything you could want. And if you’ve grown tired of cookie-cutter industrial chic coffee shops with chairs that look like this, this place will be a breath of fresh air. All the chairs have padded bottoms.

It’s cozy. Single-sided booths with comfy armchairs and tables across from them, wooden tables with wooden chairs that have padded bottoms, and a mix of gold and wood-colored accents with white throughout the space. Very nice. It’s small, but they pack seating into the whole area, so there are plenty of places to plop down.

The staff is very kind, feel free to ask questions about traditional Eritrean food because they’re happy to explain and help guide you through the menu. It’d be a shame for you to come here and just get like fries (which they do offer). Get something you’ve never heard of before. I promise it’ll be good!