Aster Cafe
Delicious Ethiopian Cuisine in Fairview
BY LINDSAY WICKSTROM
PHOTOS MICHELLE DOUCETTE
I sometimes forget how much I like Ethiopian food.
It’s not ubiquitous in Halifax, and it’s something I might forget to seek out when visiting other cities known for different things. But when there used to be two Ethiopian restaurants on Quinpool Road (20 years ago?!) I had my first introduction to this cuisine. Injera bread (a fermented flatbread made with teff flour) resembles a painter’s palette with colourful stews and salads for dipping and scooping—no cutlery required. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this slightly sour and spongey bread. But it grew on me. And every time I eat it now, I wonder: why don’t I eat this more often?
Halifax was without an Ethiopian restaurant for years, but now Aster Café is part of the growing scene of international restaurants in Fairview.
Aster is a family affair owned and operated by Tsehaye Debele (with her husband). Debele cooks, but her son, Surefale Getachew, helps around the restaurant. He sat with us to help translate. He also had plenty to contribute, as he is passionate about his culture and the family business, which he plans to take over someday (he turns 19 this year).
The family immigrated to Canada in the early 2000s, with Debele’s brother first fleeing Ethiopia for Kenya and eventually coming to Canada and sponsoring the family (with the help of the church).
Aster Café was a laundromat before the family converted it into a restaurant.
"This entire half of the laundromat, all of the machines were on this side...” gestures Getachew. “The laundromat wasn't making so much money, so [my parents] were trying to think of something that would work… something that would be a bit more fruitful.”
“One of my [regular] customers ... I told her about our food and [I said] I'm going to make for you [as] a test,” Debele explains. “So she eat with me and she share with me lunch. After that she [took] this food [to her son].”
She says the next day, her customer’s son showed up with six or seven of his friends and asked for more of the food.
So, the family built a wall in the laundromat, allocating one side of the business for coffee, tea, and snacks.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down restaurants, they took the opportunity to renovate and started offering food service full-time. Since the restaurant doesn’t face the street (technically, it’s on Dutch Village Road), they advertised a free breakfast/snack table outside with coffee and tea. The effort helped their visibility in the community, and business has been steady ever since.
Debele tells me that her restaurant is quite popular with Indian newcomers, perhaps because Ethiopian food has some similarities with Indian food: spicy stews eaten with flatbread and lots of vegetarian options. Ethiopian tea is also similar to chai, except for adding milk. Her Indian customers especially like to come on the weekends for doro wat (a spicy stew of chicken and whole-boiled eggs available on Saturdays only).
Ethiopian cuisine relies on its iconic spice blend, berbere, which prominently features chilli peppers. It is a pepper similar to cayenne (or maybe even the same thing), but Debele ships it from Ethiopia every six months for the authentic flavour.
"One time I go to the Indian store [and] I see [cayenne peppers],” she says. “This is like Ethiopian [peppers], let me see. I bring it home [to try], and it's so spicy and some kind of bitter.” She says the colour was the same, but the flavour was not.
Saturdays also feature a special dish called kitfo, or minced raw beef marinated in mitmita (a bird’s eye chilli powder-based spice blend) and niter kibbeh (clarified butter infused with herbs and spices). Debele tells me that the special dish requires very high-quality beef, so she gets her meat straight from Oulton’s Farm in Windsor.
She says that many of her customers order off-menu; they leave it up to her to prepare a big plate of whatever is ready for the day.
We are presented with a vibrant circular platter of injera bread, laid flat and carefully decorated with spoonfuls of various stews: misir wat (red lentils stewed in spicy berbere), shiro wat (made with chickpea flour), qey wot (a spicy beef stew), tibs (stir-fried beef and lamb), and various vegetables including potato and carrot, a beetroot concoction, shredded lettuce salad, and rolls of extra injera (while the injera beneath delightfully soaks up the sauces).
A set menu includes lentils, meats and a combination plate: one choice of meat and three vegetables (which might vary daily). The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 200 fasting days, so vegetarian food is popular during those times. One of the things I like best about Ethiopian food is all of the vegetarian offerings.
But the highlight of our meal is an off-menu customization of tibs (stir-fried lamb and beef). We are presented with a contraption with a fire underneath, cooking the meat on top. This variation is called cha cha tibs, and the meat gets extra crispy, undergoing a delicious Maillard reaction from the flame's heat. It comes with spicy dipping sauce, and it is stellar.
After-dinner coffee seems appropriate, as Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee.
Coffee ceremonies are an integral part of Ethiopian culture. Debele comes out with our coffee on a tray with burning frankincense (which is part of the traditional ceremony but not typically done in the restaurant because they want to avoid smoke bothering diners). This strong black coffee punctuates our amazing meal. There is just something about Ethiopian food.
"[Ethiopian food] is a very different type of experience,” explains Getachew. “It's like a kind of intimacy, not only with your food but with the person you're eating your food with. You're there to enjoy the food and respect the food. A very large part of Ethiopian culture is hospitality, and I feel like we try to promote that with this business as well."
He says the restaurant has become a resource of sorts for newcomers from East Africa.
“[It’s] a place for newcomers who don't really have a place to go,” he says, “And whenever they come in [my mother] likes to help them with research or whatever and just steer them in a direction they can go because sometimes a lot of people are lost."
"A welcome, like home,” adds Debele. “I make them coffee ceremony and everything. If I came first, same problem, right? If you don't know a new place, it's so confusing.”
Getachew smiles and tells me people have accused his mother of too much hospitality, but he shares this value as he looks to take over the business one day.
Tsehaye Debele + Surefale Getachew
"It is a good thing to have and I'm proud to have it as well, so I can pitch in to Nova Scotia diversity. I feel like it is important to keep these types of things running here because... there is a lot of issues going on in [Ethiopia]…”
… and the world.
I am so glad we see more cultural diversity in Halifax, with restaurants being a good barometer of such a shift. Places like Aster Café are precious community spaces that enrich our neighbourhoods, where locals and newcomers can feel at home. Or perhaps it might feel like a culinary adventure, a place to explore a new-to-you cuisine and immerse yourself in another culture. But once you’ve tried this delicious homemade “auntie” food, made with love and care, it will feel more and more like home.
