Ben Abeba is Lalibela’s odd one out: a giant, spiralised piece of concrete which dangles from the sky like a potato peeling. Perched on a cliff edge, the central building is surrounded by a series of smaller platforms shaped like champagne saucers. Ben Abeba draws the eye in but at the same time, asks questions.
How can this futuristic building, which functions as a restaurant, possible belong in Lalibela; this most Biblical of Ethiopia’s landscapes? In the mountainous landscape around, people still live in thatched tukuls, tilling the soil in the same manner as their ancestors a thousand years ago, with oxen lashed to a wooden yoke. Priests mutter in the otherwise-dead language of Ge’ez in the deep, shady labyrinths of the rock churches as they have done since King Lalibela created his New Jerusalem, right here, replete with its own River Jordan and Mount of Olives.
How can Ben Abeba justify itself here, with its look of a space station, its audacity to tower higher than any other building and its ambitions to serve Shepherd’s Pie, for crying out loud?
Thus we approached Ben Abeba with both curiosity and hesitation. Entering the compound, there was an instant sense of ease as we felt our way up the wooden walkway in the darkness, a clear sky sprinkled with stars above and the brush of reed grasses on our arms. The walkway spiralled upwards, leading us directly into the centre of the building and giving a sensation that the structure had wrapped us in an embrace.
The team of Ethiopian staff had an air of being happy and proud to be there. Inside, the different platforms at various levels, gave us a choice of dining places, the intricacy of the structure giving an intimate instead of exposed air. The restaurant is Ethio-Scottish run and thank goodness this turned out not just to be a ferenji tourist attraction as there were just as many Ethiopians or habesha eating there.
The menu did indeed have Shepherd’s Pie plus quiche and all the usual Ethiopian dishes. An appetiser (not usually an Ethiopian thing) was complementary: soft, billowing squares of bread almost like a brioche served with a tomato jam bursting with the flavour that only comes with the tomatoes of Ethiopia.
As we ate, we shivered slightly from the winds that cut directly across the cliff top and found their way into the curls of the architecture and so our waitress provided us with thick cotton shawls or gabis in a somewhat miraculous shade of white in the face of the dry season dust.
The bill was about 300 birr (£10) for two people including drinks and more food than we could possibly eat.
Apart from that, should you visit Ben Abeba? Resoundingly: yes; for great atmosphere, warm staff and its strangely calm atmosphere that comes as a respite from those long journeys on the road. Ben Abeba is a modern, other-worldly experience in Lalibela, after the the ancient rock churches and monasteries. But the town doesn’t need more than one of them.
Source: http://dispatchesfromethiopia.com
Editor’s note: This piece is slightly edited to make it suitable to this page.
The Ethiopian Herald, November 28/2019
