Eat
KonjoCafe.
All-day Ethiopian next to Lalibela. Kitfo is not a stew.
Location
What people get wrong
89 Irving, next to Lalibela at 91. Closed Monday. Time Out still prints 9pm. Love Your West still says seven days. New phone (03) 9529 1680. SMS bookings 0401 019 085. Kitfo is raw spiced beef unless they tell you otherwise. We last walked this on 2026-09-20. Hours move with the week. Checking the shopfront keeps the night easy.
What is Konjo Cafe known for?
Konjo is known as Irving's all-day Ethiopian cafe: silts and ful before noon, injera platters after, kitfo as the Gurage signature, coffee poured from a clay pot, beads still in the room because that was the first shop.
You walk Irving on the market side. Produce hall if it is Tuesday to Saturday. Mesnoy at 77 packing injera to take home. Then 89. Next door, 91, is Cafe Lalibela, the dinner heritage room that still owns the chicken argument. You wanted this door if the sitting started at breakfast, or if kitfo was the point.
Love Your West has Rozenn say it straight: konjo means beautiful in Abdul's Gurage, the way Italians lean on bella. Abdul Hussen came through Kenya as a refugee, learned beads as a kid, opened Konjo African Jewellery and Craft in 2004. Rozenn Blouin is French. The cafe came later. Love Your West dates the food room to 2013 and the merge onto this Irving shopfront to 2018. Tales of Brick and Mortar sat with them in 2017 and heard a slightly earlier cafe. Do not pick a founding year at the table. Look at the walls. Abdul still sells the jewellery. Look for the shallow wooden kitfo bowl if it is hanging: a well for the meat, notches from the knife.
Abdulazize told Aron Lewin in 2017 that kitfo is the Gurage speciality, raw topside chopped with chilli and clarified butter, and that he would not tone it down for western mouths. Berbere is still mixed by his mother in Ethiopia. Kylie Northover at the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 2015, watched that story land on breakfast: twenty-five herbs, a week of grinding, a room full of spice. Time Out, Sonia Nair, 23 September 2019, put the all-day job on injera: split peas, red lentils, green lentils, cabbage and beetroot cooked down with berbere. Amharic and English both work. Stay for frankincense if the pot is on.
What should you order at Konjo Cafe?
You should order silts or ful if you came hungry before lunch, then decide whether kitfo is a conscious raw-beef sitting or whether a shared injera platter does the arguing for you.
You sit. Dark wood if the 2012 Consider the Sauce room still matches the stools, long tables, a rear room if the front is loud. Injera is the plate and the cutlery, sour, spongy, slightly fermented. Tear with the right hand. The house menu still explains gursha: the host feeding you the tastiest morsel, twice, because once is unlucky. Take it. Cutlery exists if you ask. Do not perform surprise either way.
Breakfast is the job Lalibela does not pretend to own. Silts is scrambled eggs in onion, tomato and berbere, crusty bread, spiced tea. The menu prices it at $12. Ful is mashed broad beans in tomato, onion and kibbeh, a sliced hard-boiled egg, chilli, same bread. Half-half if you could not choose. Kylie ate both in 2015 with niter kibbeh in the eggs. Time Out still names enkulal be sega, scrambled eggs plus sauteed beef, if the pass has it. Ask.
Lunch wants a table that will share. Vegetarian platter at $22.50 a head, minimum two: beetroot, cabbage, lentils, split peas, shiro, pumpkin, salad, all on injera. Mixed platter at $25 a head adds spicy lamb, mild lamb, kitfo and beef tibs. Beyeinatu combo is the cheaper vegan sampler if two people was a lie. Kitfo on the lunch card is finely chopped prime beef, mitmita, kibbeh, aybe. Love Your West and Abdul call it raw topside. Time Out put rice kitfo on the page as raw. Ask how they are serving it. Do not treat it as a mild stew. Beef tibs if you wanted cooked strips. Doro wot if the national dish was the craving. Lalibela next door still owns the chicken reputation. Stay for jebena at $5, clay pot, frankincense if they are doing the ceremony. Espresso if the train wins. Beans to take home if the cupboard was the errand.
Hours, payment and queues at Konjo Cafe
Quoted hours from the house site: Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 8pm, Sunday 9:30am to 3pm, closed Monday. Call (03) 9529 1680. SMS 0401 019 085 if you wanted to warn them about a group. Last checked 2026-09-20.
Time Out still prints a 9pm close and the old 9689 8185. Love Your West still says seven days. SMH in 2015 printed Monday hours. Consider the Sauce ate lamb kai wot here on a Monday in 2012. That Monday is dead. The house still shows leftover COVID banners calling breakfast, platters and buffet deals temporarily unavailable. Walk in if the lights are on. The menu is live. Cards work. Platters have a minimum two. Walk-in for two. A Saturday twelve is not a vibe you invent at the door.
Sunday is a short sitting. If you wanted injera at 8pm on a Sunday, Lalibela publishes daily hours to 10pm. The market hall across Irving is locked Sunday and Monday. Konjo can still do Sunday lunch.
How do you get to Konjo Cafe in Footscray?
You get to Konjo Cafe by walking Irving on the market side from Footscray station to 89, beside Lalibela at 91. Do not hunt on Hopkins. The banh mi strip will not reveal this cafe.
Irving deck if you drove. After dark peel toward Barkly or Hopkins. Paisley is Merkato for spices, not the night shortcut. Little Saigon grocers are a Hopkins job. You can shop there and eat here. Name both jobs. Mesnoy at 77 packs bread. This door cooks. Do not ask them to sell you a week of teff.
If a friend said meet at the Ethiopian place on Irving, ask which number. 77 is injera to take home. 89 is kitfo and breakfast. 91 is Lalibela. Three doors. Three clocks.
What do people mix up about Konjo Cafe?
They sit at Lalibela for kitfo breakfast, or they order kitfo thinking it is a mild stew.
- 89 Irving Street, Footscray VIC 3011. Next to Cafe Lalibela at 91. Phone (03) 9529 1680. SMS 0401 019 085.
- Closed Monday. Tue-Sat 9am-8pm, Sun 9:30am-3pm on the house site. Time Out still prints 9pm.
- Kitfo is Gurage raw spiced beef with mitmita and kibbeh unless they tell you they cooked it. Ask.
- Jewellery and craft still sit in the cafe. That is Abdul's first business from 2004, not a gift shop tacked on.
- Not Mesnoy at 77 Irving. That bakery packs injera. This kitchen cooks it.
Questions people ask next
- Is kitfo at Konjo Cafe served raw?
- Usually, unless you ask otherwise. Love Your West and Abdul describe Gurage kitfo as raw topside mixed with mitmita and kibbeh. Time Out put rice kitfo on the page as raw. The house lunch card does not print doneness. Say how you want it before they season it.
- Is Konjo Cafe the same as Cafe Lalibela?
- No. Konjo is 89 Irving, all-day, closed Monday, kitfo and breakfast. Cafe Lalibela is 91 Irving, the heritage dinner room, daily hours listed to 10pm, still famous for chicken. Next-door neighbours. Different clocks. Different plates.
- Does Konjo Cafe open on Monday?
- No on the house site. Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 8pm, Sunday 9:30am to 3pm, closed Monday. Love Your West still says seven days. That is leftover. Call (03) 9529 1680. Last checked 2026-09-20.
- Can I get breakfast at Konjo Cafe?
- Yes, if the day is not Monday. House menu still lists silts, ful and a half-half, crusty bread and spiced tea. SMS 0401 019 085 if the table is bigger than a two-top. Jebena coffee if you wanted the ceremony after.
Where we checked
More in Eat
Cafe Lalibela
The Irving injera that started the argument. Little Africa is a different suburb.
91 Irving Street, Footscray VIC 3011
Footscray Market
Irving produce hall. Closed Sunday Monday. Park Irving.
18 Irving Street, Footscray VIC 3011
Little Saigon
Burned 2016. A fence, not a grocery trip.
80 Hopkins Street, Footscray VIC 3011