Sweetest folks working here! We visited on an early Friday night and sat on the patio. It was my first time trying Ethiopian food! We tried The Works platter and it was huge but definitely enough for 5 people to share. Also, it is best to come with friends as Ethiopian food is traditionally enjoyed communally, with your right hand instead of silverware (but they will kindly provide forks upon request). Dont miss out on the experience though by using a fork! Every plate comes with Injera, which is sort of like if you made a pancake and then opened it in half like a book. You get that air bubbly, soft inside- thats what the texture of Injera is like, and it tastes similar to sourdough bread. Each sample on the platter tasted so different, my favorite was the yellow chickpea/yellow split-pea and the non-spicy chicken. A lot of the flavors reminded me of authentic Mexican food so anyone who enjoys Mexican will likely enjoy Ethiopian. At the end, they surprised my friend with a slice of almond cake and a lit birthday candle. Not only that, but they brought enough slices for the group. Definitely recommend and definitely worth a try! Oh and the ladies bathroom is covered in huge mirrors which is pretty cool:-)

Ethiopian food. It was awesome. Great service. Ethiopian coffee was delicious. So many choices. Any vegetarian would be happy here. My favorite item was the green beans, and two choices of lentils are on the menu and were delicious. I dined with my daughter and she has returned several times since our initial visit! I will be doing the same.

So so good. Highly recommend.

Absolutely delicious. I’ve never been disappointed with anything I’ve tried here!

Amazing and tasty Ethiopian food! Been waiting so long for dining in at our favorite Ethiopian place! Thank you for the delicious food and friendly service!

This place was pretty cool. The food seemed authentic and was yummy. Their coffee bar was also pretty genuine and I could definitely go back some morning to grab a cup there.

The food is delicious! Even my 4 and 7 year old liked it! The service is wonderful. Awet was an excellent waiter. We really appreciated him taking the time to explain the menu to us. We will be going back!

When Mexican spices meets Ethiopian food! The food is great and the coffee is perfect. Definitely recommend to give it a try if you’re in Tucson.

Excellent food here. We enjoyed two 5 option combos. 1 vegetarian and 1 beef. When we finished we were all stuffed. They do not serve alcohol but allowed us to bring some in to enjoy with our meal. I needed a latte and it of course was terrific.

Cafe a got a good ambience. It has a really prime location for customers as well. Ethiopian food is very good. Staff is limited and less available.

This place is amazing! The food is so fresh and delicious. The portions are large and reasonable. Excited to try more items on the menu!

A great Ethiopian spot close to downtown! While I havent had a lot of Ethiopian food in my life, the food here was quite good. The food was fresh and hot, and was prepared very quickly. Id definitely recommend this place as a spot to go to with folks who like Ethiopian or who like to try new foods. And there is plenty of street parking nearby :-)

Great food, kind service, good coffee.

We are new to the area and searched out the best Ethiopian food - we sure found it at Cafe Desta! On top of delicious food, they are also incredibly friendly and kind. The coffee they serve is insanely good. We will certainly be back! (Great gluten free options for celiacs, as well, with special attention paid to the gluten free injera.)

Cafe Desta deserves more love, their food is delicious and the atmosphere is pleasant and welcoming. Despite the $$ rank on Google it is actually pretty affordable and the amount of food you get is bountiful.

The food and environment of Cafe Desta was fantastic, and the business of the restaurant reflected that. I appreciated the all vegan menu. We ordered the vegan sample platter which was more than enough food for our party of 3- we were stuffed! The waitstaff was very busy, and it took a while to get our drinks and food, but it was worth the wait!

Excellent food, excellent service. The 4 of us had The Works, a sort of a sampler plate that really gives you a taste of everything and everything is good, really good.The spicy food was good and bearable, not super spicy.My first time going to an Ethiopian restaurant and it was wonderful. I would come here again on my next visit.Highly recommended by a pretty picky guy.

Best customer service in Tucson. Great coffee ... All Ethiopian beans. And so many great dishes to share.

Love love love this restaurant for lunch or dinner! So many delicious and naturally vegan options that will fill up a whole family! Also a great option for morning coffee

Id give 6 if I could.I ordered two nights in a row. Delicious. Second night (through Door Dash), my order was incorrect, so I called Cafe Desta to get it straightened out just expecting a refund (which I wouldve been fine with), but the gentlemen there figured it out, and instead offered to come to my home with the rest of my order! Totally above and beyond, and I havent even mentioned the food.The food is amazing. There is no better cuisine for vegan folks like us.We will be ordering many, many more times. And when we can, we will be in coming to eat in person. Thank you folks!

Get the The Works to taste a little bit of everything! It really is so phenomenally tasty. The people are so friendly and kind! The gluten-free Injera is wonderful!

Love this place! Its become the spot, for real. Been here three nights in a row. The atmosphere is excellent and its a great little spot. Restaurant is clean and the food is great as well as the staff! Thank you!

My favorites are: Kaye Doro (its a spicy chicken dish) and Kosta (a spinach dish) with injera (which is clearly superior to rice). You can get both as a lunch special for 10 bucks (plus something else, like another Kaye Doro:).

Great food, good location. Wish they had more evening time drinks

I enjoy experiencing unusual and novel dining experiences, and Ethiopian certainly offers that. As for restaurants that offer this experience, Cafe Desta is as good as any other restaurant. For one, prices are very reasonable (where 3 people can eat for slightly more than $10/each). More importantly, the food is very tasty, with a lot of variety to be able to fit anybody’s tastes (including gluten-free and vegan options). The service is also genuine as the owner is the sole server. I also ordered mint tea, which I wouldn’t recommend as it’s just a store-bought tea bag, but it’s fine if you want tea to complete your meal

Food is good, our server was more concerned with a table of 4 than with me and my friend. We had to repeatedly gesture to get his attention when we needed something. I did not feel welcome 😕

Fantastic vegan food; very tasty. Dont go by appearances - its worth the visit. The coffee is excellent.

An absolute must for the downtown area. The food is exceptional and much more than portionate for the price. Adorable location as well.

Great coffee for breakfast and service. Excellent cocina.

Delicious!!!One of the best Ethiopian restaurants!Presentation is great and the food is amazing.Needless to say that the prices are very affordable.Super friendly staff too.If I lived out here I’d probably eat here every day.Highly recommended!

Great food and a very friendly staff. If you are lucky, there are a few outdoor tables that make it for a perfect evening. Bring a bottle of wine and it doesnt get better!

Or first time grid the combo for 2. It was a lot of food!

The food is outstanding and I love the neighborhood feel of the space. Ive never had a disappointing meal here

The food and coffee is delicious and they use really high quality ingredients.

We were in town a few weeks ago, we went in and ordered to-go. The man who took our order was so rude! I wanted to leave! I just went to the car and let my husband wait for the food. The food however was very delicious! Poor service, good food

Returned to the restaurant for takeout this time. The food was as good as we remembered.

An absolute favorite. Delicious and healthy. Compliments to the chef(s)!

Simple and delicious food. The lunch special allows you to try 3 different entrees for a wonderful price. We got 2 lunch specials, so 6 unique items, and every one of them was delicious, both with rice and with the injera.Host was friendly and helpful in choosing what to try. I hope I get the chance to stop through here again and try another combo of entrees!

Amazing food. Nice music

Literally one of my favorite places in Tucson. I love the food, the ambiance, and the owners are always there and so incredibly kind! I take everyone here.

Truly great restaurant! Food is absolutely delicious (best injera I’ve ever had), tons of vegan options as well as meat dishes, reasonably priced, friendly service and warm atmosphere. We ate at many of the more popular restaurants in Tucson during our time in town and this was the best meal we had. Can’t wait to be back!!

Lovely little cafe with excellent food and service. Prices are quite reasonable for the amount and quality of the food. The food is Ethiopian and is served (Ethiopian) family style — and it’s just great! The Ethi Lattes are also to... live for.

Cafe Desta is the best!!! All of the food is delicious and its an amazing deal for the price. Our Uber Eats driver messed up and the owner personally delivered the second half of our order to our house. Wish I could give more than 5 stars!

Cafe Desta is in my top 5 Tucson restaurants. Absolutely delicious! Vegetarians and vegans will rejoice to have so many wonderful options, and unlike so many other restaurants, the food is flavorful but not so crushingly salty. I used to really dislike injera and referred to it as the clammy hand bread. Desta has changed all that. Now I crave the stuff and have to have some kik, kosta, and tikil gomen with an embarrassingly foolish amount of injera every couple of weeks (I save the injera leftovers to eat with homemade food). Also, the folks who work there are super pleasant. Highly recommended!

Very enjoyable dining experience. Each dish was seductive and distinctive.

Delicious! I came from another state that doesnt have Ethiopian food so we had to stop here. Its best to come with friends and family to eat the communal entrees and share the food together. Lot more intimate. Kind and friendly staff, too!

Delightful! Small but great food. Cute setting, although parking seems sketchy. We got the vegan sampler, which had one cold stew, and the rest were hot. Everything was flavorful and we had plenty of injera bread. They do some really good espresso as well for after the meal, definitely recommend if you have room.

Jaycie Skinner did an amazing job on my recent facial.. was my best one yet. Her room is very relaxing.. loved her lights and set up. She is very pleasant, very knowledgeable about the Aveda products, answering all of my questions about the routine and products. My face has never felt better.. I’m so in love with how my skin feels. I get excited to wash my face with the products she recommended for my skin. Thank you Jaycie, I most definitely will be back! Couldn’t be happier!

We ordered The Works for 4 of us. This is a family style meal that gets you one of Everything.We are stuffed and taking leftovers home.Highly recommended.

Delicious food, good coffee and iced tea, delightful raspberry tart. And the service is great. A nice place to relax, eat, and surf the web.

Cafe Desta has wonderful food! We got the works to share for four of us and it was an incredible amount of food for a really good price. Everything was so flavorful. I definitely recommend this place. The owner was very nice too!

Great Ethiopian food. Reasonable price. Great environment too.

I had a beautiful dinner for One. The food was very tasty as my son calls it. And of course the Americana coffee is Amazing. I will be coming back!!!

Good food. Fair prices. Tasty coffee. My wife and I tried a couple of dishes that weve never had before. Were new to Ethiopian food. The experience was great. The bread is like nothing Ive had before and was great for scooping up and eating the soup. I also left full but feeling good. Well be back!

It was one of those quietly pleasurable lunch, a feeling of comfort and happiness derived from a humble combination of chicken, lamb, collard greens, rice, and a cup of Black Eye coffee. A magical chemical reaction with the digestive system to produce a difficult-to-describe sense of satisfaction.

Have always wanted to try Ethiopian food and fam in Tucson brought us here. It was truly an awesome experience, I love the sampler and I absolutely love eating with my hands! They also have gluten free injera. It closely resemble Indian food as its cooked with a myriad of different spices, my favorite was the lamb. This is a hit, definitely will be back when were in town

Food was fine lunch special portions were fine. Service was Slow for small number of customers present and not attentive.

What a lovely spot with yummy food. It’s the kind of place where you can sit with a book while eating authentic food at your own pace.My partner and I enjoyed the black and white photography and the baskets hanging on the walls.

Chill atmosphere with fantastic food and drinks! Must visit this easy to miss place!

I love the injera and come here often to get it.

Best Ethiopian good in Tucson! Excellent and quick service with vegetarian and gluten free options. Including gluten free Injera made from Teff! Highly worth visiting

Food was good. They have a spiced ice tea that was very tasty.

Their coffee is delicious, they use Ethiopian coffee beans and the flavor is rich and wonderful. So much wonderful food on offer, Ethiopian cuisine has so many vegan combinations I cant wait to try each item. They had a raspberry tart with whipped cream on special today, which was tasty and crumbly with sweet raspberries baked into it. Yum! Thank you to the owners, who are kind and friendly! So glad we came in here instead of waiting at the place next door, were so happy to have found this place and well be back for sure! Thank you!

Best way to describe this is a cafe that also serves excellent ethiopian food. If you go with a group they have samplers that will get you a little bit of everything. Way more than enough food for two people with the combo for two option. Very beginner friendly if youve never had ethiopian before, as the menu is very clear about what everything is, and they do skip some of the more eccentric fare commonly found on ethiopian menus, like the raw beef dishes.

Never go here the young front guy was rude and he over charged me for my food and didnt give the amount of food that the menu said it came with.Thankfully I paid in cash.The food wasnt very good either nor the dessert. Stay away from the alamond berry dessert. $15 down the drain.( Zero stars from me )Cafe Desta

Amazing atmosphere and even better food!! Great experience

This place turned out to be a wonderful last minute surprise on a Saturday when we couldnt get a table for our party of 10 anywhere else. They basically gave us a sampling of everything on the menu, and it was all delicious. The BYOB and liquor store across the street were the proverbial cherries on top!Id note that while the cuisine was definitely Ethiopian, the spices and heat were not as strong as youd expect in food from that region.

Delicious, quick, and so affordable. Love this place!

Absolutely loved it, clean retaurant and very enjoyable food! The dinner for two is an excellent option. Vegan options were plentiful and delicious. We chose the spicy meats/fish and they were a perfect balance of flavors. Will return and highly recommend! Parking is a bit troublesome so be prepared.

Delicious and very affordable Ethiopian food. Good service and lots of vegan optionsDefinitely recommend this place

The vegan options were excellent, and my daughter really liked the beef tibs.

Best Ethiopian food Ive ever had.

I love this little place. Have liked it for a while now and have gone for their Indian-like food more than a couple of times. Recently went on Friday after texting them the order. Their lamb dishes are amazing 🤤Can’t wait for this pandemic to be over so people can go out and breathe in peace!

What fabulous service and tasty food. I came through the door and was welcomed by the aroma of spicy and authentic cooking. I didnt make things easy with my request for something quick and non-onion, non-garlic (unheard of for Ethopian food I realised looking at the menu...), but they could not have been more charming and helpful. Plus I was rewarded with an Ethiopian-style salad (selat) that I was very happy to eat. Thank you Cafe Desta. I will be back.

This place has the best Ethiopian food I have ever tasted! My favorites are the beef and the spicy red lentils. The portions are generous and the prices are very reasonable. They also have coffee, tea, and juice drinks that are all delicious.

One of the best places in town!!! Top notch service amazing people small and personable everytime !!!

Quite good, lots of veg options

Good family style Ethiopian

Cafe Desta has delicious selections of Ethiopian food. The Awaze beff tibs is one of my favorite and is absolutely delicious. My coworkers and I we went there as a group of 5, and as soon as we got there, we were treated with outstanding customer service. Our food was served very fast and everything was so delicious. Every one there loved the veggie combination!! My daughter and I go there all the time now to eat. Highly recommended!! Great place to eat with family, date night or as a group!!

They have one of the best coffees that I’ve ever had. To the point that it’s my exclusive choice at the moment. I recommend their dinner for two, my girlfriend and I eat that for lunch and there is still some left over for later. The staff is very friendly and always pops a convo here and then. Cool cute place.

Ethiopian comes right after Indian food on my list, but I almost didnt eat there. The place was empty and that made me hesitant. But I got a sampler platter and ate it all except some of the flat bread. Reasonably priced. Friendly staff. Ill go again.

Very Good food. Service was quick even though I had not ordered ahead. Enjoyed all those great flavors, very satisfying! They are practicing social distancing theyeven sanitize my cred card.

Delicious food. Very quick for takeout.

Hands down best ethio latte in town!

Amazing food, great atmosphere, and friendly people! Love this place!

Food was delicious. We had the platter and it was more than enough for 3 adults. I also had the soup with lamb, terrific too. Wonderful variety of flavors. The service was friendly and helpful.

Fantastic food, excellent prices.

Easily one of the best places to eat in Tucson. Generous portions of authentic cuisine made from excellent ingredients. Calm quiet atmosphere, easy to feel comfortable when here. We drive a half hour to get here, and are happy to do so on a regular basis. Really special place

This is such a jewel of Tucson. I love sharing this Tucson secret with my friends. Everyone I know loves the food!

Food was fantastic.

Amazing food and service!

Consistently delicious every single time! Ive tried various dishes from the menu and loved them all! Almost everything is gluten-free and they even have gluten-free injera. You can tell by the taste of the food that they use fresh, high-quality ingredients. I never have to wonder if I am going to feel sick or bloated from the food. The food is seasoned to perfection and the employees are super friendly. My favorite dishes are the Misir, Kaye Beg, and Kik. I have never had Ethiopian food prior to this place so I didnt know what to expect but now I am a believer!

Fantastic food!! Fabulous service!!! I will be a customer for life!!

This is certainly one of the coolest restaurants in the area. Anytime I visit this place I am profoundly satisfied. They preserve their high standard service and the topmost level of dishes they offer. You always win with this restaurant. Very recommended.

Good service delicious food. Both spicy and non spicy options. Came with little salad. Loved it! Parking is... Where? Found some on alley behind restaurant. There is no parking lot. Only reason for minus a star

Amazing selection. We had a large group with children and they accommodated our every need. The food was out of this world. This will be one of the spots we will take out of town guests!

Always impeccable! So much food, so much flavor!

The owner is a huuuuuuge sweet heart !Me and my boyfriend went out to eat there. I did not read the menu correctly ( it said spicy on it ). Unfortunately due to medical reasons I can’t have any spicy food. Anyways once the owner saw I could not eat my meal he brought me cheese to cool the spice down. I was still unable to eat it. Then he brought me a plate without spice. It was delicious ! Since I had taken bites out of the spicy food my stomach began to hurt so I had to leave. The owner brought me a to go box with even more chicken. This was equivalent to a whole plate. The owner did not charge me a dime for the extra food. He was thoughtful, more than willing to explain the food on the menu etc.I highly recommend this place if you want a nice place that’s classic and can still talk amongst others. It’s definitely not a place we’re you feel up tight

Great environment and very delicious food. Be prepared to use your hands to eat, as its traditionally done in Ethiopia.

This place is awesome. Went on a Monday night, very few patrons, but great service. Food came out quick. We got a sampler for two and everything was outstanding. Will definitely be back!