Laco Melza Ethio Cafe’ & Restaurant

The sign outside this place now reads «Champion». (The website is definitely not working.) The staff inside said that there had been a change of ownership and half the menu is no longer available. Because of this I didn’t actually eat here ( Unilocal wouldn’t let me turn in a review without a star rating).

The food is great quality with quantity and the price is right. I defiantly i’ll go back.

There’s a lot of competition for good Ethiopian food in Silver Spring, but I think LacoMelza is the best. Their service is great, and it’s a quiet and comfortable ambience. What puts them ahead of the pack, though, is the quality of food. Their food is never greasy the way many Ethiopian restaurants are. While other restaurants also have good meat dishes, Lacomelza does their vegetables justice as well: every dish I’ve had is remarkable.

We came in to Laco Melza this weekend late at night and quite enjoyed it. It is open till 11:00 on Fridays and we came in apologetically at 10:40, but were given a warm welcome. There was only one couple eating when we came in.
The waitress was very friendly and the restaurant was pretty. The red walls had lots of different shadows from the different lighting fixtures.
We ordered a raw kitfo and a vegetarian sampler. The kitfo was great. It was super buttery with great flavor and a good amount of heat to it. One of the better kitfo offerings I’ve had. The cheese with the kitfo was more like cottage cheese than like the crumbly feta like cheese that we often get, and I didn’t like it quite as much. The vegetarian combo was also really good, especially the lentils and the split peas. The gomen was very garlicy, tasty. The cabbage was also really nice. In addition they had a really nice salad with spring mix as the greens instead of just lettuce. A definite improvement.
It wasn’t the cheapest meal, $ 27 total for both dishes and we successfully cleaned our plates, but it wasn’t too expensive either. They also spent some time on the presentation. Our dishes came out in individual bowls which we then scooped onto our injera and the injera on our plates was cut into nice triangles.
This was a great surprise and a really enjoyable restaurant. We will definitely come back.

This would be a three-​star review, except that this restaurant is within an easy walk of my house, so an extra star for that! The food is great, the owners and staff are charming, the restaurant is quiet (no loud music or sports on TV). With so many Ethiopian restaurants nearby, this one is always our first choice for all of those reasons. They were hit pretty hard by Hurricane Sandy — flooding and a power outage forced them to close for a couple of weeks, which is tough on a new restaurant. But business seems to be picking up again. I sure hope so, because it would be a shame if this little gem were to leave our neighborhood.

After several other visits, I really felt like I needed to update my review. This is one of my favorite restaurants in DC and definitely my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Silver Spring. Why have I bumped this place up? Several reasons. The restaurant is clean and the ambiance is calm and romantic. What a relief it is to not have soccer matches on the tele or loud music. This is not that type of place. The women who run Laco Melza are fantastic. They are attentive, helpful and very sociable.
Now the food — the glorious, glorious, food. Everything I have had here has been excellent. I recommend the veggie platter, doro wot, or the rosemary tibs (add berbere sauce!). I can tell that great care has been taken with each dish. Unlike some other places where sometimes the random piles of mush aren’t very distinguishable, everything I have tasted here has been fresh. The freshness and spices make such a difference.
I enthusiastically recommend Laco Melza !

Listen up, vegetarians, Ethiopian restaurants just got a little more interesting! This adorable woman-​owned gem up on Georgia Ave in Silver Spring has TOFU TIBS! All the other standard items in the vegetarian combo are good too, but the tofu tibs is ingenious. Service is very friendly, bathrooms are clean, and the motif breaks from the mold of most Ethiopian restaurants. Give it a try!

LacoMelza is great etiopian restaurant silver spring inside nicely done and food quality is one the best in DC area. Loved it!

Unfortunately, I have to rescind my earlier stellar review of Laco Melza. There was a small stone (yes, an actual stone) in the misir wat that I almost bit down on. In addition, the prices have increased while the portion sizes and food quality have disproportionately dwindled since the grand opening. This restaurant no longer tops my list as one of the best Ethiopian restaurants in the DC area.