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Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant(Bethesda)

Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant-Bethesda MD provides spicy thunder of Ethiopian food. Our experience cooking in the finest restaurants, our chef is excited to present their vision to you and all our guests.
Our caring and committed staff will ensure you have a fantastic experience with us.
Named after the fossil hominid discovered in Ethiopia, Lucy does things a little differently than most of its competition.
An appetizer of kitfo—the tartare-like raw beef—arrives in sandwich form, stuffed into a crusty baguette with lots of spiced butter.
Another house specialty, giro giro,features red-wine-marinated morsels of tenderloin in a flame-lit pot, further ignited by green chilies.
The traditional line isn’t lost—many families gather over blankets of injeraladen with richly flavored stews.
An evening at Lucy calls to mind its inspiration’s Amharic name, Dinknesh. Translation: You are marvelous.

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Main Branch

We started off with some drinks. They have a good happy hour special on draft beers. I’ve been to a lot of Ethiopian restaurants, but I always end up ordering the same two or so meat dishes. Since there were four of us, we were feeling adventurous and asked the server what she’d recommend. We got a couple of new things, including the Balageru. It’s basically this fire-roasted spicy beef with peppers that is just so good! The awaze tibs were also delicious as usual. The third thing we got was lamb, and it was also delicious, but I can’t remember what it was called.

Each dish comes with two vegan servings on the injera. These were all delicious versions of standard things I had before–lentils, yellow peas, cabbage, etc. the one thing that really stood out, though were the tomatoes. They were tangy and sour. We jokingly called it “the pico” but really, it did have kind of a pico de gallo vibe and I didn’t hate it.

One other really amazing thing about this place was that they were willing to accommodate for dietary restrictions. Half of our party couldn’t have dairy, so they were able to make some of the dishes without butter. What more can you ask for?

Just make sure you wear stretchy pants!

Visit Our Other Restaurant