ABOUT US
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WHY ERITREAN ITALIAN?

 

The Blue Nile is a family run Eritrean - Italian café and restaurant, harking back to Eritrea’s colonial history. Eritrea’s capital Asmara was built by pioneering Italian designers who saw it as a blank canvas for experimentation, creating wonderful modernist buildings. Many Italians moved to Asmara, and as a result the Italian and Eritrean cultures, languages and foods became completely intertwined…

 

 

THE BLUE NILE: ONCE A LOCAL SAUSAGE MAKING SHOP, 1935

As we began works to the shop, and pulled down partition walls, we discovered clues to its past... This was once a sausage making shop, built in 1935 and what a large, grand butcher’s it was! We’ve lovingly uncovered all the tiles, ceiling and railings to reveal this piece of local history.

 

THE FOOD

Our menu has a mix of Italian and Eritrean classics, from Italian coffees, pasta and ice-creams to Eritrean ‘kemem’ tea (tea infused with cloves, cinnamon, star anise and ginger), warm ‘ful’, meat stews infused with cardamom and cinnamon and cooked in ‘tesmi’, a warm and comforting spiced butter and our delicious home made sweet cardamom flavoured bread called ‘himbasha’.

 

A lot of our recipes are gluten – free and we have a wide range of vegetarian dishes.