Bati Ethiopian Kitchen

Ethiopian food & culture with Hibist Legesse, owner of Bati Ethiopian Kitchen in Brooklyn.

 

“Ethiopian food is very communal. Traditionally when you eat, you're encircling, like, a round table, and everybody sits around the table. And you're all eating from the same platter. Enebla is a term that we have. It means, 'Let's eat,' you know, it's not let me eat, it's let's eat."

 

 

“Gursha is a bite. You're tearing off a piece of injera and you're going to each stew on the platter and sopping it up. And you'll actually feed it to another person.”

 

 

“It's very colorful, it's bold flavors: spicy, tangy, earthy, savory notes in the food.”

 

 

“That piece of injera is your hand, is your utensil to pick up the food and eat it…. I mean, it can be messy, but it's okay to be messy…I think it's elegant and sophisticated.”

 

 

“I could imagine, you know, making this restaurant that would be like an extension of a living room kind of setting, with food. So you're, like, feeding people in your living room.”