It was a Tuesday around noon when I first walked into Desta Ethiopian Kitchen on Garland Road, mostly because a coworker had mentioned it three times in two weeks and I’d run out of excuses. The smell hit me before I even found a table — clarified butter and berbere spice and something slow-cooked that made the whole room feel warmer than it probably was.
Desta Hailu, the owner, was moving between the kitchen and the front with the kind of quiet efficiency that tells you she’s been doing this a long time. She came to Garland from Addis Ababa years ago, and the restaurant she built here isn’t trying to be a novelty or a novelty-adjacent experience for people who’ve never eaten Ethiopian food before. It’s just the food she grew up eating, made the way she learned to make it, served in a small dining room on a stretch of Garland Road that most people drive past without slowing down.
When she stopped at my table for a few minutes — she does this, makes the rounds in a way that feels genuine rather than performative — I asked her about the injera. She makes it herself, which not every Ethiopian restaurant in the DFW area bothers with anymore. The fermented teff flatbread that covers the shared platter is sour and spongy and nothing like what you get from a bag, and she seemed pleased that I noticed the difference without her having to point it out.
I went with the combination platter, which runs around fourteen dollars and is the right call for a first visit. You get several small mounds of different stews and salads arranged on the injera — doro wat with a whole braised egg, misir wat (red lentils cooked down with spices until they’re almost creamy), gomen (collard greens with garlic), and tibs, the sautéed beef that has a little heat and a lot of char. You eat with your hands, tearing off pieces of injera to scoop everything up, and the communal logic of the whole thing makes you want to linger longer than a Tuesday lunch allows.
The vegetarian options here are worth noting specifically: Desta told me a lot of her regulars are Ethiopian Orthodox Christians who observe fasting days and need meat-free meals, and she takes that seriously. The fasting platter — all vegetables, no dairy — is not a lesser version of the meal. It’s just as considered as anything else on the menu.
The dining room seats maybe thirty people and fills up on weekend evenings. Friday and Saturday nights tend to bring in families and groups, and there’s often injera being packed up for takeout while the tables are still full. If you’re going for the first time, a weekday lunch is easier — quieter, and Desta or one of her staff will have more time to walk you through the menu if you want that.
Parking is in a small lot off the main road. The place doesn’t look like much from the outside. Cash and card both accepted. Expect to spend around fifteen to twenty dollars per person, less if you’re splitting a platter.
I’ve been back four times since that first Tuesday. The injera is still the best in Garland, and Desta still stops by the table to make sure everything’s right.
