EFFOI Restaurant & Bar opened in Silver Spring in 2010, founded by sisters Marye and Nigist Effoi. Marye, the executive chef, trained under her grandmother in the traditional cooking methods of Addis Ababa and brings more than 20 years of culinary experience to the kitchen. Nigist oversees hospitality, drawing on her background in her family's traditional coffee ceremony to shape the restaurant's service.
The menu runs through the staples of Ethiopian cooking: Doro Wot, a spicy chicken stew with hard-boiled eggs; Special Kitfo and GoredGored, both raw beef preparations; Yebeg Tibs, lamb sautéed in clarified butter with onion and tomato; and a Beef Combo built around assorted beef dishes served with injera, the sourdough flatbread used throughout the menu. Sambusa, filled with seasoned lentils or meat, rounds out the appetizers.
Coffee is treated as its own ritual here. The restaurant performs a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony — green beans roasted over hot coals, ground by hand in a wooden mukecha, then slow-simmered in a clay jebena — poured across three traditional rounds.
Washingtonian included Effoi in its Silver Spring restaurant coverage, in a piece by Ike Allen.
The menu runs through the staples of Ethiopian cooking: Doro Wot, a spicy chicken stew with hard-boiled eggs; Special Kitfo and GoredGored, both raw beef preparations; Yebeg Tibs, lamb sautéed in clarified butter with onion and tomato; and a Beef Combo built around assorted beef dishes served with injera, the sourdough flatbread used throughout the menu. Sambusa, filled with seasoned lentils or meat, rounds out the appetizers.
Coffee is treated as its own ritual here. The restaurant performs a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony — green beans roasted over hot coals, ground by hand in a wooden mukecha, then slow-simmered in a clay jebena — poured across three traditional rounds.
Washingtonian included Effoi in its Silver Spring restaurant coverage, in a piece by Ike Allen.