At 16, Lalibela Spills Its Secrets

“What would you like?” Shilmat Tessema asked as she lifted a warm container of food over her Lalibela truck’s countertop.

Thomas Breen stepped up to the chrome-and-yellow food truck that has become a beloved staple at Ingalls Rink, eyeing the steaming, thick portions of turmeric-kissed cabbage, gleaming, wilted green beans, spice-rubbed carrots, and clay-red lentils that he had been thinking of all week.

Breen paused. Everything looked good to him. ​“The red lentils, spinach and potatoes, and zucchini? Please?” he asked, hoping he’d made the right decision. Six dollars sat crumpled and ready in his palm.

Tessema grinned, spooning three servings into a takeaway container and placing a side of spongy injera gingerly on the top like an oracle bone.

Welcome to a small, tasty slice of Tessema’s Addis Ababa upbringing that rolls up to Ingalls Rink and to Cedar Street five days a week, rain or shine, and has a permanent home on Temple Street.

The head chef and owner at Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, Tessema, who goes by Tess, said that it’s one part a passion for food and one part a dedication to her customers — at the food truck for lunchtime and the restaurant for dinner — that draw her to her job every day. 

“You have new customers and old ones who have been there since you opened … it’s always exciting to see how customers eat the food, and of course we are proud of the food we serve,” she said, doling out portions to hungry visitors despite a bone-chilling wind.

Back in the restaurant on Temple Street, she explained that the core of her menu is made up of several traditional Ethiopian dishes that she has served for 16 years, acquiring a husband, two children, and a cozy Connecticut home in the process.

The flavors — green beans and carrots, spicy, deep red lentils and chick peas, sour homemade cheese served with steak tartar, soft and stringy berbere-rubbed chicken, stewed spinach and zucchini, finely chopped collard greens, and her famous spinach and potatoes — remind her fiercely of the country she left 20 years ago

“This is the favorite,” she said, pointing triumphantly to the wilted carrots and green beans.

But that hasn’t stopped Tess from trying to figure out how to make old favorites better. She is always looking to the next meal, whether at home or at work. Since taking over the restaurant for her brother nine years ago, she has been there every day except Sunday at 8 a.m. to start the kitchen operation. At 11:45 Monday through Friday, she arrives at the Yale Whale, aka Ingalls Rink. (Her brother runs the truck on Cedar Street by the medical school and hospital.) Around 1:15, she rolls back to the restaurant and gets to work on the dinner rush.

It is, she said, a tradition that she would not have any other way. In 16 years, the yeasty, slightly sour steam that rises off injera as it cooks, the deep yellow of split peas when turmeric is added, the images of Lalibela and Addis that glint from the walls when the restaurant is full of light and chatter, have become an integral part of her life. A drive born out of that passion, that sense of ceremony, she said — paired with a willingness to add American-friendly options like gluten-free injera and rice at lunch, or serve the steak without marrow and a boiled egg — has allowed the restaurant to remain a constant presence on the block.

“We are the first restaurant on Temple Street besides Kelly’s … there has been a lot of turnover. But Lalibela stays. We have a lot of history. We have a couple who met here and have kids. Every Thanksgiving they come back here. We have some students … you know, five-year anniversary, ten-year anniversary from Yale, who say ​‘I used to come here!’”

The food truck also lures people, in time, to the restaurant. ​“Not a lot of people know there is Ethiopian food, but they taste it and they love it [at the truck], and then they come to the restaurant. Plus, you have people who cannot come here [to the restaurant]. If you take it there they will eat the food … and it’s a reasonable price, fresh every day.

“It’s demanding,” she continued. ​“The food cart is more of a challenge than the restaurant. Every day, there’s a lot of customers looking for you.”

The other secret to her success? She answers questions like this with a smile.

“I love my job. I love it!”