The combination, for the table
Six or seven different stews around one center, each spooned onto the injera in its own place. It is the order to make when nobody at the table has decided yet.
Ethiopian restaurant & bar · Central District, Seattle
One plate.
Everyone reaches in.
On E Cherry Street, Zagol serves Ethiopian food the way it is served at home: stews spooned onto one round of injera, honey wine poured from a berele, and a coffee ceremony that comes to your table.
4.4
on 564 Google reviews
2722 E Cherry St · open seven days
- Rating
- 4.4 / 5
- Google reviews
- 564
- Open
- 7 days
- Fri & Sat
- till 2 AM
Gursha
The plate is the bread, and the table shares it.
If you have never eaten Ethiopian food, this is the part worth knowing before you sit down. Nothing here arrives in your own private portion, and nothing here needs a fork.
“Gursha is the bite you roll with your own hand and put into someone else’s mouth. The bigger the bite, the bigger the compliment.”
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Injera comes first, and it is the plate
A single wide round of sourdough flatbread, soft and full of little craters. The kitchen spoons everything straight onto it. No bowls in the way, no dividers.
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Tear a strip. Pinch a mouthful. Repeat
Right hand, no cutlery. You tear from the edge, fold it around whatever you are reaching for, and lift. By the end of the meal the plate itself is gone.
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Then you feed the person next to you
That is gursha, and it is the whole reason the food is served on one round instead of four. Coming for the first time? Order a combination. It puts most of the kitchen in front of you at once.
What comes out
Stews that took all morning, laid out in a ring.
Meat and vegetables are cooked separately and arranged side by side, so one plate can feed a table that does not agree on anything.
All vegetables, no compromise
Yellow split peas, red and brown lentils, collard greens, cabbage with carrot and potato, beets, fresh salad. Nothing on the plate is an afterthought or a substitution.
Straight off a hot pan
Sautéed with onion, red pepper and jalapeño, a wedge of lime on the side and a fresh salad next to it, all of it on its own round of injera.
From the bar
Tej, the honey wine
Amber, sweet, quietly strong. It arrives in a berele, the round-bellied glass flask you pour from and, more often, drink straight out of.
The full menu lives at the restaurant. Call (206) 322-1019 and ask what is on today.
Buna
Coffee here is a ceremony, not a cup to go.
A black clay jebena, small hand-painted cups on a stack of painted saucers, a woven basket of fandisha (freshly popped corn), and incense smoking beside the tray. It is poured slowly and it goes round more than once.
Best ordered after the plates come off the table, when nobody is in a hurry.
The room
A dining room, a bar, and a hall for your turn to host.
White linen, high-backed chairs, ochre walls. And a second room we rent out for birthdays, graduations and memorials. It says so on the banner over the door: hall rental for your special occasion.
Ask about the hall
The bar
The night does not stop at dinner.
Friday and Saturday the doors stay open until 2 AM. Most weeknights the room runs to 10 PM, Sunday to 9 PM, and Tuesday is the short day: we close at 5 PM.
Ethiopian & vegetarian
Full bar
Hall rental
Find us
2722 E Cherry St, Central District.
(206) 322-1019
The fastest way to book a table — and the only way to book the hall
@zagolethiopianrestaurant
Latest plates and events
Opening hours
Reserve
Three steps, and the table is asked for.
Pick a day, tell us how many are coming, leave a number. The phone is still the fastest way to reach us — and for a party of eight or more, or to book the hall, it is the only way.
Call (206) 322-1019564 reviews
4.4 out of 5, and counting.
Five hundred and sixty-four people on Google have already said what they think of this kitchen. If you have eaten here, the rating is yours to move.
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