Tirana Restaurants

Lurking in a cellar below a modern high-rise lies this rustic Albanian tavern with wooden beams, medallions, large spoons and lutes. The reasonable Italian food here is complemented by an excellent salad bar.

Enjoy a bottle of Albanian or Italian wine with one of the restaurant's excellent salads and their home-made gnocchi. This restaurant is sure not to disappoint.

Open 12:00-23:00

Favorite Dish: Gnocchi!

Shanghai has potential. Situated near Tirana's busy downtown/nightlife district and housed in a newly renovated building, the restaurant should be so much better than it is.

Serving up the standard fair, Shanghai's one redeeming quality is that it's menu is written in English and that the waitstaff are, in fact, Chinese. Additionally, the restaurant sells Tsingdao beer (perhaps the only place in Albania) and has an interesting selection of Chinese wines.

I suggest avoiding this restaurant.

Favorite Dish: Mediocre meat dumplings

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Do these distorted golden arches look familiar? They're suppose to.

Welcome to Tirana's version of McDonalds. This somewhat lively establishment, located near Tirana University, is extremely disappointing. Serving up hamburgers, french fries, and fried chicken, don't get your hopes up, the food is bland and overpriced. Additionally, the restaurant is awash with little brats running around hurling projectiles at one another. Don't even bother with this place.

Favorite Dish: Nothing here is good.

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Visit the Taiwan Center in the heart of Tirana for some excellent Italian food. Given it's location in the center of Tirana's business district, this place is great for lunch!

After dinner or lunch, go downstairs and bowl a couple games in Tirana's premier bowling alley.

Favorite Dish: The Margarita Pizza is great!

Vila Amsterdam is in the embassy opposite the Dutch Embassy. We ate here because we spent an hour locating the old East German embassy, where the recommended Villa Ambassador restaurant was meant to be located. Vila Amsterdam turned out to be an acceptable substitute, although we were at first concerned that nobody else but us was ordering food in this busy establishment. I don't know why this is, but the pizzas were pretty good. Excellent stone baked bases, but the topping followed the Albanian style of pizza, and looked and tasted more like cheese on toast than something you'd get in Italy.

Good prices though, and probably pretty good as far as pizza goes in Tirana.

Taivan is located in a park next to the city's only casino, the Regency (can't remember the exact location)

The waiters are very well trained, and the food is good - some dishes betterm some worse, the portions are large and the prices are comparatively cheap (I think it was ~ $10 for most main courses).

Can't remember the spelling of the name - our hosts kept pronouncing in "Tiavun"...

You can't beat this place if you're looking for authentic Italian food! Tavernetta has a great menu that includes several house specialties (which change daily). The waitstaff are friendly, speak English and the prices are good.

Tavernetta must be owned by an Italian because the decor inside the restaurant harkens to old Italy (not tacky, very well done).

While the wine selection could use some work, they do have a stock of some nice Albanian table wine.

Favorite Dish: I love the gnocchi, but everything that I have had on the menu is excellent!

Bacchus Pizzeria is an affordable local Albanian pizza joint. The pizza's are excellent and range in price from 350 lek to 550 lek.

Bacchus also offers take out options as well.

Favorite Dish: I would strongly reccomend the "Sausage and Ham" pizza.