In Ethiopian cuisine, love is intrinsically linked to food; it's an ingredient included and shown whether through cooking, family or prayer. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles commune around a dinner table, eager for the meal prepared before them. There will be the passing of plates, the ripping of bread, the scooping of food, and even the feeding of one another. The name for this act of familiarity is gursha. Shown by tearing a strip of injera, filling it with wot, and placing it into a friend or family member's mouth, this gesture is symbolic of your bond. You are nourishing the other, through food and action.
Located in the Mercado la Paloma-an incubator for first-time business and non-profit owners run by Esperanza Community Housing-on South Grand Avenue, Azla Vegan is symbolic of its matriarchal namesake's love for and devotion to her family. It's symbolic of her youngest daughters, Nesanet's, passion for integrating community, health and culture together. Before opening in 2013, My mom was actually retired in Ethiopia, Nesanet tells me. You see, Azla immigrated to the United States-twice. Once to raise a family, and then to return to family.
Nesanet and Azla, owners of Azla Vegan || Photo by: Alicia Cho
Azla Vegan serves exclusively dairy- and meat-free Ethiopian fare. When one walks up to the heavy wood counter, a framed photo of Azla and Nesanet adorns a shelf overlooking the food and customers-an idol in its sacred space. And if you peek inside the window to the kitchen, you'll see Azla busy at work preparing the day's injera; made of just teff and water, it's a naturally gluten-free flatbread used in place of a utensil.
Omitting meat options, Azla's menu focuses on the rice and lentil side of the traditional cuisine. You'll choose a base of injera or brown rice, and then wot and salad entrees. All sides are meant to be deliciously mixed and matched and enjoyed together.
We're not here to preach the gospel of veganism, Nesanet tells me. She guesstimates about 90-percent of their customer base isn't even vegetarian. Azla Vegan is trying to provide healthy options for the local community-with hopes of expanding soon. I believe ancient cultures-even those that had meat in their diets-understood nutrition and understood whole foods, she explains to me. This is not something new. Hipsters didn't invent this approach to eating.
Azla Vegan Drink Menu || Photo by: Alicia Cho
Growing up, Azla's children weren't raised vegetarian, although the majority of their diet was. It consisted of lentils, greens, fresh fruits and vegetables. The Ethiopian diet, in general, tends to be on the healthier side, says Nesanet. But the catalyst for committing to a meat-free diet happened around the time Nesanet went to college at Stanford. We all became vegetarian for different reasons, she tells me of her siblings-all six of them-individually adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet. My oldest brother was the pioneer.
So Azla had to modify dishes since several of her children no longer consumed dairy, let alone meat. She learned. She adjusted, Nesanet explains. In the Ethiopian orthodox faith, which is what our family's religion is, there are lots of fasting periods. With Lent, it's 55 days. And every Wednesday and Friday you do a vegan diet. And there are all these smaller fasting periods, so it ends up being something like 200 days out of the year you're on a vegan diet.
--
--
Nesanet's family first immigrated to the United States in 1982 where they landed in Phoenix before settling in San Jose, California, for two years. But ultimately, Nesanet and her siblings grew up in the Central California agricultural community of Bakersfield. My dad really wanted to find a small town for us, Nesanet tells me. He literally got in his car and drove south from San Jose and landed in Bakersfield. He got back in his Station Wagon, drove back up to the Bay Area, and packed up his family to move. These days, most of their family resides in Los Angeles.
When Azla first retired in 2002, Nesanet's sister, who was an attorney at the time, saved up enough money to buy her parents a home in Ethiopia. And when Azla came back to visit in 2012, she told her kids, This whole retirement thing is boring. I'm still young. She confessed it was always her dream to open a restaurant. With Nesanet's background in wellness-she was a science teacher and taught health in South Central L.A., spent time as a school administrator, and also became a certified yoga teacher-it made perfect sense that they actualize this dream together. Nesanet admits her career path has been all over the place. She also worked in entertainment and managed her sister's law practice, But through all of those things, I always maintained this real love for food. I think something my mother instilled in me was this idea of food as a way to share love, and to really nurture a community and build community, she says.
Azla || Photo by: Alicia Cho
After toying around with ideas, what came to mind was Azla's dinner table. In Bakersfield growing up, on Sundays she would make this huge meal. All my cousins would come over. The neighbors would come over. And they'd ask, What's on the menu today?' Nesanet says. They decided to recreate and extend that family experience.
Nesanet's favorite dishes were always the spicy lentils and collard greens. That's why we're so passionate. We feel like Ethiopian food is such a great way for people to explore plant-based foods because you're not missing anything there, she says. There's texture, there's spice, there's flavor, there's variety. So for us, it wasn't a huge deal.
Much of the menu consists of variations of tr
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
In Ethiopian cuisine, love is intrinsically linked to food; it's an ingredient included and shown whether through cooking, family or prayer. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles commune around a dinner table, eager for the meal prepared before them. There will be the passing of plates, the ripping of bread, the scooping of food, and even the feeding of one another. The name for this act of familiarity is gursha. Shown by tearing a strip of injera, filling it with wot, and placing it into a friend or family member's mouth, this gesture is symbolic of your bond. You are nourishing the other, through food and action.
