Maraki Restaurant & Lounge

I had a great time here a few weeks ago. The décor is warm and inviting. It’s dimly lit, making it a great place for an intimate night. Our server was a doll, she was friendly and attentive. We had drinks and hookah. I can’t wait to return to try some of the food.

Maraki has come a long way since first opening. I was a little less than impressed in the beginning, but now I like to think I am kind of a regular.
The food here is great. I usually get the same thing every time, beef tibs, salad. But, believe it or not, one of the best things on the menu here are their chicken wings. They must come from some big chickens, because these wings are kind of huge. Crispy, meaty, delicious wings. Which go perfectly with the vast drink selection. The service is great and the owners work right along side their staff, always friendly and inviting to everyone.
I usually come to Maraki for live music, drinks, dancing and hookah. From tradional Ethiopian singers to one of my favorite local reggae bands, they have it all. If you don’t like the band downstairs or think to yourself «Am I drunk or am I missing something, because I swear this singer has been singing the same song for the last two hours» or if you simply want something a little different, they have a DJ upstairs in the lounge area. There is a nice little dance floor to just let loose on or, in my case, make a fool of yourself with your crazy dance moves. But seriously, no one will care. There is always someone there with slightly worse dancing skills than me. And everyone just comes here to eat, drink and be merry.
I love the interior aslo, especially in the colder weather. It has a kind of chic but cozy vibe. Great food, drinks, service; I have definitely grown to love Maraki and would recommend it to anyone.

Awesome awesome place. I’m serious about my food, and this restaurant delivers. While the exterior and interior definitely look more like a club than a restaurant, we were immediately taken care of by the waitress. After reading reviews on here, we went with a meat sambusa and a lentil one. Both were divine — although unfortunately, slightly cold in the middle. I do believe they were homemade, just maybe made on a previous date, but they were still amazing.
For main course, we went with the 4 part vegetable combination, beef tibs and the doro wot. Between my husband and I, the doro wot was the favorite, although all of the others were closely behind. We’ve been to several other Ethiopian restaurants in the past in DC and Chicago, and food wise, this experience was by far the best. Very flavorful all around, with each one having a unique and exciting profile.
We had a LivingSocial deal, but I would easily return and pay full price (which is very affordable for a lot of food!!) even though this place is quite a haul from our apartment in Rosslyn.
All in all, definitely highly recommend this place as a great date and can’t wait to eat my leftovers tonight!

Oh how I’ve been searching for good Ethiopian food since moving to the DMV area from Cali (best is hands down in NorCal… Well i mean I’m sure in Ethiopia. super dying to go there one day. But until then, best I’ve had is def NorCal)
I see the biggest complaint people have are the service and how they dealt with coupons. Looks like they got it together! We got this lovely girl waiting on us, really friendly, and my living social deal was taken, no problem. My bill ended up being $ 2 SCORE!
So, for the important part: nomnoms! Having tried all the silver spring and DC area spots, lemme say, the flavor here at Maraki is the best (for my tastes at least). The injera isn’t too vinegar-​y and the spicy wot flavor was awesome! The doro wot actually came with a drumstick and an egg AND the veggie combo (I’d skip the 5 item and go with the 4. You miss out on their mung bean item which as a Chinese person I didn’t like at all cuz cummon, that’s for dessert man!) Also, they actually served that deliciousness of their white cheese as an extra side (which is hard to come by here)!! Lovelovelove.
It’s a great place to stop by before/​after catching a show at 930 club since it’s a hop, skip, and jump away. The ambiance is just alright. Bar casual. VERY dark (Hey, which may be good if you’re on a date hahah o_​_​_​_​O) and VERY loud (no go for any intimate dates, got it guys?)
This is def the only Ethiopian place I’d go back to so I’m grateful to the foodie gods that I found it!

Maraki is a 3.5 star place. We ordered the mixed plate for two, which was solid. (We also ordered the spring rolls, which came out cold in the middle. They did not charge us for them, but nothing puts a damper on your meal like knowing that some of your food is frozen, and can’t even be adequately heated?) All of the vegetarian options on the maki plate were delicious (collard greens, lentils, chick peas, cabbage) and I enjoyed the meat options for the most part as well.
This is not the best Ethiopian I’ve had, but it’s definitely solid, and very inexpensive. The atmosphere feels more like a club than a restaurant, and it was nearly empty when we went on a Sunday night at 8pm. Our waitress was friendly and very attentive. While I think they have a variety of cocktails, the only beer they have is Harar — which is fine, but I usually like to have choices :)
I came here with an AmazonLocal deal — I might come back for live music on a Friday night, though not sure that I’d return for the food.

Very solid date night experience here. We arrived at around 8 pm on a Saturday evening, and were immediately greeted by a super friendly bartender/​server who encouraged us to sit anywhere. So we chose a small table on the first level next to the bar, and she came by with ice waters and menus soon after.
We tried to order the sambusas, but she said the only app available was the spring rolls sooo veggie spring rolls it was. We also ordered the dry lamb tibis and the maki combo for two. The spring rolls were meh and the dry lamb tibis were definitely dry… but the injera and the combo items were awesome. Plus, our server was really nice and attentive. One minor ding was that I got bit by a mosquito and, upon looking around, noticed that there were a handful of them circling the lights… ewww. Overall, though, we really enjoyed ourselves!

If you are looking for an authentic Ethiopian experience, this should not be on your list of choices. As it is appropriately named, it is a lounge and bar that happens to serve Ethiopian food along with a mixture of American food for the less adventurous diner. I was there yesterday and ordered Doro Wot and was served about 16 ounces of sauce with what appeared to be one leg of a Cornish game hen. (It was also accompanied by a hardboiled egg and injera) I have eaten at many other Ethiopian restaurants in the region, and based upon my other experiences; felt that what was labeled an entrée on the menu barely passed for an appetizer. I brought this to the attention of the server and I was then provided with an additional piece of chicken which appeared to be the backbone of the chicken between the breasts, a piece of scrap probably more suited for flavoring in the preparation of soup. It was explained to me by the manager that this is the typical size of their dishes and that the backbone piece was essentially being provided as a courtesy. I requested and was brought another dish– beef tibs which I found to be acceptable, yet mediocre. The staff was pleasant in trying to accommodate me, yet I would not return here given the presentation, quality and quantity of the food.

Recently my friends came from out of town and I took them to Maraki. The waitress waited until we ordered our drinks and hookah only to tell us we had five minutes to finish everything because it was time to close. If she told us we don’t have time, we wouldn’t have ordered; the bouncer was yelling and making a big scene. The manager knew the service was wrong and the waitress shouldn’t have served us anything if she she knew it was supposed to close; but he didn’t want to refund our money. We came to enjoy our night and to show my friends a good time but it didn’t end well. Over all we had bad service and a disappointment to my friends.

I went here one night to watch a basketball game, and I don’t think I could have picked a better place for it. The food was delicious, my friend and I sat there for at least two hours watching the game and never felt rushed, and they must have learned from Venu’s experience. I also had the livingsocial deal and spent less than $ 30. When the waitress wasn’t sure how to handle it, the owner came over to talk to me and explained how it would be managed and that it was no problem. He was very nice.
I can’t remember the name of the dish I had, but it was lamb and it was fantastic. Spicy but not overwhelming. Tender but still slightly chewy for a very nice texture. I will definitely be returning to Maraki.

The food:
AMAZING 4.5÷5 Injira might not be my thing, but everything else was bangin!
Waitresses:
AMAZING ⁵⁄₅ They were very attentive, polite and just darlings!
Atmosphere: ³⁄₅
It was pretty dark in there lol Maybe that’s how it was supposed to be though.
Why I gave it a ²⁄₅ overall:
My wonderful boyfriend purchased a $ 15 voucher off of
. The deal was $ 30 worth of food for $ 15. Essentially it was a 50% off deal if you spent $ 30 (It didn’t say you had to spend $ 30 though). This was great because the food was awesome. However, we spent less than $ 30 and our bill came to a total of $ 26.30. We weren’t looking for a credit or anything, our meals just didn’t get up to $ 30, that’s all. Anyhoo, when my boyfriend took out the voucher and gave it to the waitress, she had no idea what it was about. She then took our receipt to another man, who gave it to another man, who came back with a NEW receipt that said we owed them $ 14! $ 14? WTF? «How could we owe you money? This doesn’t make sense!» we said in a respectful tone and manner. A man then approached us and said that the deal was actually for 30% off, but we had the voucher in our hands and it CLEARLY said $ 30 lmao He then left WITH our NEW receipt, went upstairs and conversed with someone for about 15 minutes or so. ANOTHER NEW receipt emerged that had an added $ 6.50 and said that we owed them $.50. OKAY, 50 cents? That’s not a lot at all, but it’s the principle of the whole situation. Why buy the damn voucher if we needed to pay anything extra. We questioned the added $ 6.50, and the waitress asked us if we wanted to talk to the manager. We said YES! A little rotund, bald man came from upstairs and approached us. He was nice at first. Asked us how our meal was. He then explained that the voucher was meant for us to spend $ 30 or more in order for us to get the discount. We said, «SIr, look at the voucher. It doesn’t say it here in the fine print.» He then says, well, our cash register is not programmed to give you a credit, so I had to add on a certain amount. It’s only $.50.“But sir, we shouldn’t have to pay anything but a tip. You actually owe us a credit. We don’t want the money though! It doesn’t make sense for us to pay anything.” He THEN goes on to say that
added this deal on their site and they only get $ 7.50 for each person that uses the voucher (??) is what I understand. I insensitively said, «Sir, that’s not our problem. How were we supposed to know that your register wasn’t going to be able to ring us up correctly.» I’m really upset at this moment and I could see that he was too. «Ma’am, you have to spend $ 30 in order to get this deal.» «No sir, that’s not what it says here! We went back and forth, back and forth. He then ended up saying, «But you don’t even have to pay the $.50!» Then what the fuck did you have us here for an extra 30mins trying to figure this out for? That man was so wrong and tried to do us dirty. TERRIBLE MANAGER!
A note to the manager:
— Don’t lie about
putting your restaurant on their site without your permission.
–Don’t try to argue about something with someone who has physical proof about what they’re saying.
— Know what kind of coupons you have out there so you and the patron aren’t surprised and/​or pissed when the bill comes.
–Get your damn cash register fixed. Update that shit.
Thanks!

The incontrovertibly abominable nature of Maraki’s «service» dooms what otherwise warranted a 3.5 star review. Regrettably, however, the snippy yet clueless waitress not only floundered at simple tasks such as checking to determine whether our food was prepared, but she also accidentally provided us with spring rolls instead of the sambusa we ordered (which could have been a further disaster but thankfully we received vegetarian spring rolls). Given time constraints and our waitress’s apparent repulsion towards performing her own job, there was zero opportunity to enjoy what we actually desired. Adding a second layer of frustration, the manager futilely attempted to browbeat my very determined lunch companion by arguing that her online deal wasn’t valid. What he didn’t realize was that he was arguing with someone who very recently had finished within the top ten in the world in an international mock trial competition. Needless to say, we got the deal but narrowly avoided paying for it tenfold in the form of a parking ticket. Service was one dimly lit star.
Maraki doesn’t only have abysmal service. The space itself has an almost foreboding character with almost no ascertainable light within it. Nearly seventy percent of the restaurant’s space is taken up by its bar. If you want to sit at an unnecessarily cramped table while receiving piss poor service, do I have the place for you…
Maraki avoids a one star review purely based on the strength of its cuisine. While it would almost be blasphemous to place Maraki’s name with stalwarts such as Ethiopic or Zenebech Injera, Maraki does present solid vegetarian options at extraordinarily affordable prices. Specifically, the collard greens doused in clarified butter and their rendering of cabbage interspersed with carrots were heavenly. The remainder of the plate was adequately palatable especially at the aforementioned discount price points.
Maraki’s cuisine can only take it so far when there are serious impediments to what should have been a rather enjoyable experience. Perhaps the service is better on other days. Perhaps the atmosphere would not have been so awful during the evening. But I don’t live in a world of hypothetical experience. Here, grounded squarely in reality, the 2.25 stars I’m providing Maraki is probably remarkably generous.

Stumbled across this place and wow, best Ethiopian food we have had in DC! We live in the neighborhood and have been to all the other Ethiopian restaurants in the area and this new comer is the best, especially for the value.