Axum Restaurant

We enjoyed our experience here and are looking forward to coming back to try more dishes from the menu.
For appetizers we got the sambusa and the azif. I liked the sambusa quite a bit; the outside reminded me of an Indian samosa and the inside was filled with lentils, onions, and spices. I wasn’t fond of the azif because I’m not a huge fan of horseradish. Next time I go, I’ll probably try the timatim fitfit instead.
For dinner, I got the meat sampler with dero alicha (chicken in turmeric sauce with various spices), regular kitfo (medium beef tartar), doro wot (chicken drumstick in berbere sauce), and key wot (raw beef in berbere sauce). I liked all of it, especially the beef. I was a little put off when I figured out that the key wot was raw beef, but it really did taste quite good.
I believe my fiancé got the Axum special tibs with lamb, which he enjoyed. I don’t like lamb, so I didn’t try it.
Both meals came on a large piece of spongy bread, with more bread on the side and a fresh vegetable salad in the middle. The bread complements the food nicely.
The honey wine was good, but I don’t think it contained much alcohol because I didn’t get a pleasant pre-​dinner buzz like I usually do if I drink a glass of wine before my meal.
Baklava for dessert tasted fine.
A lot of the reviews mentioned very slow service. This was not our experience. Service wasn’t especially fast, but it wasn’t agonizingly slow either. The server was pleasant.
Atmosphere is decent, nothing special, but the restaurant appeared to be very clean.

Not my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Denver, but the service was great.
The food was a little more bland than I would have liked, but the groupon voucher was helpful.
I don’t really have much to say about it simply because it wasn’t anything spectacular or good.

This is hard for me to review because the food was really nice & flavourful, staff were very friendly, place was clean, but we won’t be back here simply because it’s just not our thing. It was great to experience the food but it wasn’t to the point where we LOVED it.
We bought a groupon which was for 2 appetisers, 2 entrees and 1 dessert.
I can’t remember the name of things, but we got #14 & 15 for the apps. The one with lentils is VERY spicy. It comes with the traditional bread which helps but it was still quite BAM! The other one was nice, both served cold.
For the entrée we decided on 2 tasting plates. The meat plate you choose 4 from 6 options and the meat/​veg plate you choose 3 veg & 2 meat. Seeing as that there was only 6 meat options we ended up with 1 of each plus 3 veg all on 1 massive plate. The veg we had one cabbage & potatoes which was really good. One was collard greens with cottage cheese which I didn’t like as much and one was like a lentil paste which was good. The meats were all really nice. Great flavours. 2 were slightly spicy and the rest were not. Had a hard time picking the beef from the lamb, had no idea which meat belonged to what name but it was all good.
Dessert was baklava, the groupon said that was our only option but they did offer us cheesecake. The baklava was really really sweet.
We also had a honey wine with the meal which was recommended by our lovely server. It was ok but had a bit of a different taste that didn’t have me drinking it faster like a good red!

Ordered #18 today 12Oct.
A little dry. No; VERY DRY.
nice music; ethnicly (is that a word?) & age mixed crowd. Willing & nice waitress /​owner but the lamb was too dry to eat. Maybe I will try again but not soon.

The Groupon voucher made it very worth the price. It was also tasty in general regardless.
The injara is not gluten free which was definitely a disappointment.
If you get the combo meal, the portions of each item are very small and do not come as full description. E.g. the chicken didn’t come with egg. Which I think should be more clearly stated.
The server was very sweet. The atmosphere was clean and simple.
The outside should really be improved though. It totally didn’t reflect the quality of the food.

Ethiopian food is a fun culinary experience in which you eat with hands. So please WASH YOUR HANDS!
My husband and I had just arrived in Denver from the airport on Wednesday (Sept 16) and decided to come here for dinner. We came in around 7:10 pm. There seemed to only be one server working, so we were just standing around waiting to be seated.
Eventually this server noticed us and seated us at a table in the back (it was rather cold since it was near the vent). After browsing the menu, we decided upon:
Axum Salad, $ 5 prior to tax– Being the healthy conscious person, I decided to order a salad to start my meal. Thought the salad was good, nice a cold. I didn’t eat too much of the cheese though, as I am not a big fan of feta cheese (would have asked to omit it but was not in the description on the menu). I liked the light dressing in the salad.
Sambusa with Vegetables, $ 2.50 prior to tax– This sambusa was pretty good, filled with lentils, onions and jalapenos (so there is a bit of a spice to this. a little too spicy for this non spicy eater). The pastry itself is nice and flaky. The size of this sambusa is a good size as an appetizer.
Vegetarian Combo, $ 11.95 prior to tax– For this combination meal, you can choose 6 vegetarian options. I picked Kik Alicha (#41– yellow split pea), Atakilit Wot (#42– cabbage, carrots, potato), Shiro (#46– spiced chickpeas), Misir Wot (#39– split red lentils), Misir Alicha (#40– whole green lentils) and Carrot and Fesolia (#44– carrots and green beans). I truly loved every one of my choices but I think my favorite would have to be the Carrot and Fesolia and Atakilit Wot.
Meat Combination, $ 12.50 prior to tax– For this combination meal, you are able to choose which four meats you want. My husband picked Yebeg Kikil (#35), Yebeg Alicha (#31), Doro Wot (#33) and Key Wot (#34). Each of these meats were pretty tasty, but all on the spicy side for me (but not that spicy for my husband). Each of the lamb meats (Yebeg Kikil and Yebeg Alicha) were nice and tender. The chicken (Doro Wot) was interesting in that it still is on the bone (drumstick). It was flavorful and tender. So was the beef (Key Wot).
Baklava, $ 3.50 prior to tax– For some reason, I was just in the mood for a dessert and we ordered this (I purposely ate less of my dinner to make sure that there would be room for dessert). This dessert came with 2 small pieces (probably 2 – 3 bites per piece) and was good. But don’t think the size of it is worth the price though.
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(Total= $ 38.33 includes tax, prior to tip)
The portion size of our entrees was quite enough for 2+ people. We took home leftovers. Service was just okay, but considering that there is only one server I think she still did her best to try to accommodate the tables that were dining in this evening. When we had our entrees brought to us, our server only brought us 2 pieces of injera bread. I would have preferred for her to bring a few more so that we did not have to ask her for another refill.
I do want to mention that there is free WiFi (password is plumtree) and it was pretty fast.
Overall, food was excellent and I left a happy, satisfied person. My husband did like his food but one negative about Ethiopian food is that generally there is only small portions of meat and that you fill up on the injera (I love that spongy bread). That may be true, but I still love eating the food.

Lately I have been getting to go food from this place since Red Sea Rest never answer their phone every time I called. Food was good but I wish their put little more ingredient to make the taste stronger. Even sometime I have hard time to communicate on the phone with the phone over taker, she did it right. Thank you

We bought the groupon for this place as neither of us has tried Ethiopian food before. We were pretty excited.
There’s a lot of space in the restaurant, we were seated immediately. There was only one woman working and she was extremely friendly. We tried sambusa and azifa for the appetizers. They were both tasty, and the latter was heavy on the horseradish, which was just ducky with us. I had lamb tibs for my entrée and Jess had the awaze tibs. Both of them were excellent and we devoured everything quickly. The baklava here is good, a small bite size for each of us and not overly sweet. We were warned about the food being very spicy, but neither of us found that to be so. Excellent flavor though. The sponge bread that comes with all the servings is good but a little goes a long way I may back off that next time.
The bar even offers Ethiopian wine and beer.
We will definitely be willing to come back here I really enjoyed the food.

The food is always good, friendly staff. even better they are open until 2am, the kitchen closes at 11pm.

This place is great. Very happy with there Ethiopian food in comparison to my regular spots I have no complaints

It has been years since I went to an Ethiopian restaurant, so I don’t really have much to compare Axum to. With that said, the food was awesome. I generally don’t like spices like curry and Rosemary, but I really enjoyed my visit to Axum.
We got a Groupon for four, which ended up providing us with way more food than we needed. My wife and I got #18 and #50. I couldn’t stop eating. But what really set this place up for success was our waitress Marry. She was so kind, genuine and helpful. She didn’t seem to mind that we asked stupid questions like, «How do you pronounce _​_​_​_​_​?»
The dining room was much nicer than I expected. I definitely will be back here. Maybe not soon because I’d still rather have a steak, sushi, or Korean BBQ, but it was a great experience.

I’m in love with this place! The best Ethiopian food, the prices are great and service is always fantastic. I have to be here at least once month. Loves!

I like this place, but I don’t really like the food. There are, in my opinion, better options in Denver. Apparently you can check it out at a pretty fair price for brunch though, and maybe stay for the late night dance party that appears to ensue, as they have a little stage, and stay open late, after they have stopped serving food.

Excellent service. Excellent staff. Excellent food. Extremely clean establishment. All around perfect restaurant.

i was trying to count on two hands the number of Ethiopian restaurants I have been to. Most have been here in Denver, and the search is still on.
Axum, though is on my repeatable list. The food and the pricing were on par and I thought the atmosphere was great.
If you are also into trying and finding a few staple Ethiopian places this should be one of them. They have rare and raw options on a few of their dishes. The house made honey wine was delicious.
Go for it.
DT

I have eaten here a few times. My Friend is Ethiopian and this is NOT her favorite restaurant… but it has a much nicer atmosphere and I think the service is better. Food is not as flavorful as I’ve had. Even when we order our Combo platter Spicy… it’s rather bland… and I’m not a «eat everthing so hot you sweat girl!» But even my mom who lives in the Wisconsin… thought it was bland… And she hardly even salts anything! :)
Besides it not being spicy enough for me… it’s a good place! Those reviews I read on here… that diss’ed this place do not know Ethiopian as this is the same menu at nearly ALL of the restaurants! So instead of say Yuk… why not just say, you not a fan of the food style! Jeez!

Let me summarize by saying yuk.
The disgusting food was complimented by terrible service. We went to try this place out and weren’t familiar with the menu. After a long wait for our server to come to the table, she was unrelenting in her ability to disclose any information to us. Her only comment was «everything is good.» That was her answer to questions like what is the most popular dish, what’s her favorite, and even more specific questions about dishes.
I can’t recall whatever mush we ordered, but the mushy flatbread just made everything worse. We laughed so hard at how awful the food was, I almost forgot to leave a review.

Some friends and I went for lunch a few weeks ago. At first we were the only patrons in the restaurant, but it picked up a little.
The sambusas were wonderful! The injera was perfect. I was a little confused by the blandness of some of the lentil and vegetarian options. Since this was my first time here, I’ll have to go back and see if it was just an ‘off’ spice day.
Drawback is that’s quite a drive for me, but I’ll give it another shot.

I’ve had a lot of mediocre experiences with several Ethiopian restaurants here in Denver, while still not my favorite, Axum was well worth price for what we paid. I went with a friend around 7:30 this past Saturday. Rather than looking at the menu, I asked our server to come out with a combination of several dishes for us to try and share.
When the food came out, we got 10 portions of different vegetarian and meat dishes and all of them were quite good, but I do have to say that I enjoyed the vegetarian dishes more than the meat dishes. My friend who I went with actually commented «wow, finally good food in Denver!» (Despite the fact that I don’t agree, he’s not a fan of the Denver dining scene.) The portion amounts were huge too, we were only able to eat about ²⁄₃ of what was brought to us and our server asked if something was wrong because we didn’t finish.
How much is this going to set you back? If you got what we did plus a glass of honey wine each, it’s about $ 40. Not a bad deal! There are usually Groupons out there for Axum, but those are for set entrees — I don’t think you can do their combination platters with those though.

First and foremost, I want to send my BIG Thank you to Axum Restaurant. Prior the BIG event, I have been to AXUM several day earlier to ask whether they offer GLUTEN FREE FLATBREAD aka INJERA for those Gluten Intolerant. The staff said, YES they could do it, as long as they have like 2 or 3 days NOTICE before the actual event.
On Saturday evening of September 14^th 2013, 9 friends and I head down to AXUM Restaurant for an Ethiopian Feast. YES we brave the STORM even the Flooded Roads along COLFAX just to be there.
The Dinner appointment at AXUM was at 17:30hrs. I came in early as usual, and the staff at AXUM had our table ready for us. YES I cannot deny, there are some misses and hits that evening… for one the SERVICE to bring out the FOOD can be slow…
But My Oh My, by the time the evening went away, this establishment is indeed packed to the brim. YES this is one of the establishment in town which offer Ethiopian Cuisine that can afford to have LARGE GROUPS! SCORE! Thank GOD for that!
We were given the Menu, and everyone is given water. Some of my friends opt to have Beer and Soda that evening. From the Extensive Menu my friends decide to order the following items, in which these were the ones that I can remember :
* Kategna ($ 3.00)
* Regular Tibs ($ 12.95)
* Awaze Tibs ($ 12.95)
* Doro Wot ($ 9.95)
* Dero Begomen ($ 10.95)
* Vegetarian Combo ($ 10.95)
* Rice with Lamb Alicha ($ 12.50)
At 18:10hrs, the first Appetizer of Kategna was sent to our table. Then at 18:35hrs, the Main Entrees were sent to our table. The portions are generous and the pricing is affordable and reasonable. One of my friends is a regular at this establishment. AXUM also offer BREAKFAST options from 9am to 12pm.
That evening, I opt to have the Awaze Tibs, ($ 12.95) but specifically requested it to be SPICY. The Awaze Tibs was lightly sautéed tender cubed pieces of lamb mixed with their home made awaze sauce and onion, garlic and jalapeño pepper. It did not come out Spicy as I want to, but the Flavors of all the Pieces of Lamb were well balance and delicious!
Our server also offer EXTRA Baskets of Injera to our table that evening.
At the end of the Dinner, when our server approached our table and asked us how are things, we answered it was ALL GOOD. Our server was surprised when I told her my order was NOT Spicy enough. She even mentioned that I was the first person, to tell her, the FOOD was NOT SPICY enough. Then I told her I am used to SPICY Food and love my food to be SPICY. Everyone enjoyed and like their order that evening. One of my friends also purchase the Baklava ($ 3.50). She like it. She told me, the Baklava has a hint of Orange Blossom or Rosewater in it.
Another added Bonus in my books is that Axum allows everyone at my table to have SEPARATE Checks. That definitely eliminate any headaches for everyone. Everyone is Happy indeed.
I even purchase The Meat Combo ($ 11.25) for Hubs but I think they put the «wrong» order in my TO GO Order box. Hubs like the meat but he is NOT into the Injera at all. This was the case, coz he is NOT exposed to eating the Injera, as much as I was. All in all, I don’t mind returning and hope to order other options in the future. Thank you Axum. Thank you.
@204/2013