The Abyssinian food at Corarima in Wakefield is the best food from this region I have ever eaten.
Admittedly I’ve not yet made it to Ethiopea or Eritrea, but I have tried a good spread of restaurants in London and the North. If you haven’t eaten this style of food before, Corarima restaurant is a great introduction. If you have, then you’ll be impressed by the quality of the food and cooking.
Asamnew Asres gave us a warm welcome. He remembered me even though it had been over 5 years since I last visited and I was never a regular diner. He prides himself on traditional hospitality – you feel as though you are being welcomed to his family, not just his restaurant.
Assamnew, his wife Rachel BeIn who is one of the chefs, and their children came to Wakefield as asylum seekers in 2007. Assamnew is a trained engineer and initially worked in business once he had settled status, but Rachel had a dream of bringing her cooking to the people of Wakefield. In 2018 they opened Corarima with friend Bizunesh Kebede.
When we visited the small city centre restaurant on a Wednesday evening, three tables were occupied. If you want to come at the weekend, you will need to book. The space is bright, spotlessly clean and decorated with woven African platters and lampshades. The counter has a display of spices, including Ethiopian Cardamom or false cardamom, also known as Corarima.
The menu offers a range of starters, including sambusa (African samosas), hummus and various salads. We decided to go straight for the main event and only ordered a main. There is a choice of seven pulse-based dishes and another fifteen vegetable dishes. Spoilt for choice, we opted for the ‘combination for two’ (£43) which provided us with a selection of dishes from both sections of the menu.
All dishes are served with injera, a sourdough flatbread pancake. The spongy pancake acts as plate and cutlery. Food is served on top of injera and further strips of injera are available, to tear and use to pick up food. Cutlery is provided if you require but using your hands is the traditional way to eat this cuisine. In some places, this can be a messy business, especially if you order the chicken dishes which can be quite oily. Here, the dishes are moist but firm; the flavours soak into the injera base without causing disintegration.
The injera was covered in a generous nine different pulse and vegetable based dishes. All had a good level of spicing but none were dominated by chilli. The Berber spice mix allows each element to play its part. Our four different pulse dishes varied in consistency and spicing. My favourite was the Tomato Flax, no doubt healthy as well as tasty. The vegetable dishes included a spinach-potato combination, cabbage, soft spicy aubergine, a mixed vegetable dish and a cold beetroot dish. All were delicious, but I am always amazed at what Ethiopian cooks can do with cabbage.
The injera here is made from Teff, an ancient grain still grown in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Containing calcium, iron and lots of minerals, this grain is a superfood that is entirely sugar and gluten-free. Some other restaurants cut costs by using local grain, but this injera is more authentic, easier to digest and healthier. There are also healthy drinks to accompany your meal: Telba, a refreshing drink made from flax seeds and creamy Beso made from barley and honey.
We washed our meal down with water and a bottle of red that we had brought from home. The restaurant is unlicensed but they are happy for you to bring your own drink for a corkage fee of £3.50. I prefer this approach. Food this good deserves good wine and I can afford a better quality of wine in a shop than a restaurant. We finished our meal with a pot of Abyssinian coffee. The imported beans are hand-roasted and the coffee, expertly poured by Assamnew, is served in a traditional pot with a side of popcorn.
A visit to Corarima is a cultural experience. It is the family’s way of giving back to the city that offered them refuge when their own country became too dangerous to live in. There is real pride in the quality of food served here, which is tasty, nutritious and healthy.
Corarima 10 Cross St, Wakefield WF1 3BW
www.corarima.co.uk
Photography by Debbie Rolls.
