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CNN Names Syracuse Restaurant One of the World’s Best Syracuse EthioEritrea Restaurant Named One of the World's Top 20 By CNN

Entrepreneur honed his cooking skills while living in a refugee camp.

By Jiaqi Huang

On North State Street, an EthioEritrea restaurant is pulling in a lot of foot traffic. This three-month-old restaurant has made Syracuse, appear alongside cities like Paris and Dubai, in CNN’s nomination of the world’s top 20 best new restaurants for 2020.

“I don’t expect that it to be named in CNN, but God brings that, not me.”

Tesfa Okube is an Eritrean native. He came to the United States in 2011.

“I have a small café when I was in the refugee camp, I lived in the refugee camp for seven years.”

Okube said tables have been fully reserved on Valentine’s day. Some people are first-time customers after they saw the CNN story, but some have been loving Ethiopian and Eritrean food for a long time.

Ethiopian coffee is served daily. But on the weekends, the restaurant offers a formal coffee ceremony.

Okube says he’s busiest during the weekends as around 100 to 200 people come to eat.

“I will grow my business, if I can, I can do all fifty states.”

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News)—On North State Street, an EthioEritrea restaurant is pulling in a lot of foot traffic. This three-month-old restaurant has made Syracuse, appear alongside cities like Paris, HongKong and Dubai, in CNN’s nomination of the world’s top 20 best new restaurants for 2020.

 “I don’t expect that it to be named in CNN, but God brings that, not me,” said Tesfa Okube, the restaurant owner who has seen more people visiting the restaurant after CNN’s nomination.

Okube is an Eritrean native. He came to the United States in 2011. He said he was always having a headache when the restaurant business just began last November. 

“It’s a small city, and not a lot of people know about Ethiopian and Eritrean food,” Okube said.

However, according to Okube, now he is busiest on the weekends as around 100 to 200 people come to eat. With this coming Valentine’s Day, almost all tables have been booked in advance.

Before coming to Syracuse, Okube opened a small cafe in an Ethiopian refugee camp. 

 “I lived in the refugee camp for seven years,” he said.

The current restaurant in Syracuse retained the family style of Okube’s cafe in the refugee camp. Okube said social life in his homeland is different than that in the United States.

“In my country, family is important,” he said. “I take care of my family, and my family takes care of me.”

Seven months ago, his family came to visit him and brought him some traditional Ethiopian and Eritrean decorations, which can be seen at the corner and on the walls of his restaurant.

Some people visited his restaurant for the first time after they saw the CNN story, but some have been loving Ethiopian and Eritrean food for a long time.

A customer, who is also vegetarian, said she first tried Ethiopian food in the late ’90s, and has always looked for the same food since then.

“Ethiopian food offers a great variety of vegetable choices,” she said. “You can have all the flavor and feeling in your mouth at one time.”

Traditional Ethiopian coffee is served daily. On the weekends, the restaurant offers a real treat, a formal coffee ceremony.

Working hard and never stopping, Okube said his goal is to open the restaurant for a very long time.

“I will grow my business, if I can, I can do all 50 states,” he joked.

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