Eat
RasDashen.
The Barkly group table. One plate each is how you waste it.
Location
What people get wrong
Better as a shared table. Closed Monday and Tuesday. AGFG still prints 247 Nicholson. Wondimu will explain the plate if you look new. We last walked this on 2026-09-20. Hours move with the week. Checking the shopfront keeps the night easy.
What is Ras Dashen known for?
Ras Dashen is known as Barkly's group injera table: two breads, a spread of wot and tibs, frankincense in the air, and a family that will explain the plate if your hands look new.
You leave Footscray station and you take Barkly. Chemists. Wine glass. Dental doors. 247 is terracotta, flag colours, paintings, scarves, bowls, woven hats. Time Out told you to look for Wondimu's face in a painting. You sit. This is not a tasting counter and it is not a food-court tray. Amharic and English both work because he will talk. He punctuates sentences with a laugh. You came to tear bread with other people and leave heavier than you arrived.
Sonia Nair ate here for Time Out on 26 July 2024 and kept the five stars on a room that had already been feeding the inner west for more than a decade. Nicholson in 2011, Barkly from 2017. Love Your West sat with Wondimu: the name is Ethiopia's highest mountain, refugee years in Sudan, Footscray because it was already the African heart, kids raised in the west, extended family on the floor. Alemitu runs the kitchen on family recipes. He wants the room to stand out like the peak. That is the house story, not a slogan.
Dani Valent, 25 July 2025, walked a modest renovation: new furniture, new artworks, same welcome. The Age Good Food Guide later scored the sitting 14/20, updated 27 October 2025, frankincense hanging, communal fare, doro wat as the must-order. Frank Sweet, writing for Good Food in May 2022, already had the winter picture: tej in one hand, injera in the other, Ethio-jazz, a portrait of Wondi on the wall. He mentioned a recording studio upstairs. Do not invent that the studio is tonight's job. Ask Wondimu if the night is still that kind of night. Phone (03) 9687 2748. Licensed. Vegetarian and vegan plates are marked. You eat with your hands.
What should you order at Ras Dashen?
You should order several dishes onto two injeras and stop thinking in mains: doro wot, a pulse, a green, then clay tibs if the table wanted the plate Wondimu keeps recommending.
You sit. You wash your hands. Injera lands as landscape, sour, spongy, two colours. Valent printed the flour: a white bread from rice, white sorghum and wheat; a tan bread from brown sorghum and teff, nuttier, both with that lifted sourness of a fermented batter. Time Out still calls them white sorghum and brown sorghum. Tear from the edge. Scoop. Cutlery exists if you ask. Do not perform surprise either way.
Doro wot is the national stew and the heat Nair kept: berbere, caramelised onion, bone-in chicken, a hard-boiled egg, oily enough to cling. Dehrek tibs is the dry-fried lamb counterpoint, moreish, lighter, the thing you order so the table is not only sauce. Clay tibs is the jealousy plate. Nair watched it land on other tables and promised next time. Valent got Wondimu's version in 2025: lamb chops with broccoli and cauliflower on a claypot. Love Your West already had him calling lamb ribs on clay his favourite. If it is on, order it.
Then the pulse and the green so the tray is a meal. Shiro if chickpea stew was the hunger. Misir wat if red lentils were. Ful if you wanted fava beans, clarified butter, tomato, feta and egg, the breakfast Nair ate at dinner time. Gomen cuts the richness. The unassuming small serve of veggie dish is potato, carrot and cabbage, and she refused to treat it as filler. Vegie firfir if Valent's vegetarian sitting sounded like you: injera mixed into stew. Mamma Knows West, 7 July 2024, still sends kids toward alicha wot, the milder beef, and the parent toward shiro. Gluten-free injera on request. Spice is a conversation. Coffee if you let the table run: house-roasted green beans, ground to order, boiled on the stove. Tej if Wondimu has the honey wine. An Ethiopian lager if the chilli already won. Portions run large. Bring a leftover mindset. Two people can eat. Eight people on a Saturday is a phone call.
Hours, payment and queues at Ras Dashen
Quoted hours from Time Out, 26 July 2024: Wednesday to Friday 12pm to 9:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 12:30pm to 9:30pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Call (03) 9687 2748. Last checked 2026-09-20.
Walk-in for two. Book the group. Cards sit on some directories. Still not a QR-code counter. Monday and Tuesday are the wasted trips.
Mamma Knows West prints a later Friday and Saturday close, 10:30pm, and starts Wednesday from 12:30pm. AGFG prints 11:45am Wednesday to Sunday, then files you at 247 Nicholson. HappyCow still matches Time Out from late 2021. The Time Out window is the one on this card. Glance at the glass.
How do you get to Ras Dashen in Footscray?
You get to Ras Dashen by walking Barkly from Footscray station to 247. It is the lit spine in 3011, not the Nicholson mall and not Irving.
Count the numbers. 247 sits among chemists, wine rooms and dental doors. Matsu is next-door hunger of a different country. Albert Street plaza is the closer deck than Irving unless you also wanted the market. After dark, Barkly is already the brighter walk. Do not invent a mall shortcut because dinner made you ambitious.
If a friend said meet at Little Africa, ask which suburb. If they said Footscray injera on Barkly, this is the pin.
What do people mix up about Ras Dashen?
They still search Abesha, walk Nicholson, and decide the suburb failed them while the terracotta room is on Barkly and dark on Monday.
- 247 Barkly Street, Footscray VIC 3011. Phone (03) 9687 2748.
- Closed Monday and Tuesday. Time Out: Wed-Fri 12pm-9:30pm, Sat-Sun 12:30pm-9:30pm.
- Share wot and tibs on two injeras. One plate each wastes the sitting.
- Same family: Nicholson 2011, Barkly from 2017.
- AGFG still prints 247 Nicholson. Little Africa is West Melbourne.
Questions people ask next
- Is Ras Dashen on Nicholson Street?
- No. Ras Dashen is at 247 Barkly Street, Footscray VIC 3011. The Nicholson years were 2011 to 2017. AGFG still files 247 Nicholson. That pin is how you walk the mall hungry.
- What are Ras Dashen hours?
- Wednesday to Friday 12pm-9:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 12:30pm-9:30pm on Time Out. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Mamma Knows West prints Friday and Saturday to 10:30pm. Call (03) 9687 2748. Last checked 2026-09-20.
- Do I need a booking at Ras Dashen?
- Two people can walk in, especially midweek. Call (03) 9687 2748 for a group. Saturday night for eight is a phone call, not a vibe.
- What should I order at Ras Dashen?
- A shared spread: doro wot, a lentil or shiro, gomen, clay tibs if they are on. Two injeras. Coffee at the end. Gluten-free injera on request. Do not order one timid plate each.
