The 10 Best Restaurants in Berat – Traditional Food

Berat › The 10 Best Restaurants in Berat – Traditional Food

Berat may be one of the smaller towns in Albania, but when it comes to delicious food, it’s second to none. Some restaurants in Berat are very popular with tourists, so you may need to book in advance to get a table.

However, you can also look for alternative restaurants in Berat that aren’t as well known by tourists but are popular with locals, which is always a good sign. Here are my top recommendations for restaurants in Berat.

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My recommendations for Top Rated Berat Restaurants

If you’ve been travelling in the Balkans for a while, you’ll notice some immediate and delicious differences to Albanian food. Cevapi fatigue is over! Albanian cuisine is a fresh and flavourful alternative. There are some specialities here that you won’t find anywhere else in the country – you should definitely make the effort to try at least a few of them. If you’re wondering where to eat in Berat, here are my top tips.

Tradita e Beratit

One of the highest-rated restaurants in Berat, which is also a boutique hotel, is Tradita e Beratit. It is located in the Gorica neighbourhood in a beautiful historic building that has been lovingly restored and has an outdoor area from which you have a breathtaking view of Berat and the surrounding countryside. It is a family-run restaurant where the mother cooks all the food and other family members help serve and wait on guests.

But it’s not just the food that is served here, but also the ingredients and the story behind the dishes, which are presented with great attention to detail.

Tradita e Beratit serves a menu of Berati and traditional Albanian cuisine, so you can try a variety of dishes in one sitting. The restaurant prides itself on being a kilometre 0 restaurant, which means that all ingredients are sourced from local producers. The tasting menu reflects the seasonal produce of the region, and when paired with a bottle of the home-distilled wine, it turns into a unique experience.

Antigoni Restaurant

The terrace offers one of the best views in Berat. From up here you can see the whole town – and taste the whole range of local specialities.

Try the homemade sausages, Berati schnitzel (pork stuffed with hard cheese), Pispili (spinach pie with a cornbread base) and, of course, the leek pie. The white bean salad with gherkins, parsley, and fresh lemon slices is just the thing on a hot day.

Homemade Food Lili

A unique restaurant in Berat. The delicious food is homemade and unpretentious; try the fergese, the pumpkin burek (seasonal) and the chicken cooked in yoghurt. Homemade wine and raki are also served. It’s the hospitality that makes this place special – let’s just say Lili is not what you might imagine!

There are only five tables, so be sure to book a place at Homemade Food Lili a few days in advance. When we were there, we saw a dozen hopeful people being turned away.

Restaurant WilDor

This restaurant serves traditional dishes in a beautiful, air-conditioned dining room. We ate grilled vegetables with balsamic vinegar and a local Berati dish with pork cooked in a clay pot. The restaurant is very popular with tour groups, so it is advisable to arrive early for lunch.

Alpeta Agroturizem – Slow Food

The Alpeta restaurant is dedicated to traditional Albanian cuisine, where each dish tells a story about our family’s heritage. The menu is a mix of fresh, local ingredients and authentic recipes passed down from grandparents.

From the savoury taste of homemade byrek to the succulent meat from local farmers and the crunchy vegetables grown on our own land, every dish is a celebration of our love of food and tradition.

Alpeta is, in my opinion, one of the best agriturismo experiences in Albania. I highly recommend a visit. The farm also has a few, but very nice rooms. ☑ Check availability and prices here.

How to get there: Two public minibuses (Furgon) run daily from Berat to Roshnik from the ‘Spitali’ neighbourhood in Berat. By car: 30 minutes drive north-east of Berat, asphalt road.

Restorant Roshniku

A 30-minute drive from Berat you will find Restorant Roshniku — a family-run restaurant that uses only local ingredients from the village and the surrounding area. It is a unique restaurant in Albania, where all the food is cooked on wood fires. As in other restaurants I’ve been to in Albania, there is only one set menu, so you can try a variety of Albanian dishes at once.

Our tasting menu included a lot of vegetarian dishes, which was very good. It also included local cheese, olives and goat meat, which was a new experience for me. What I liked about this restaurant (apart from the food) was that the beautiful interior was built by the owner himself and a lot of the furniture and decorations have been reused and given a new lease of life. Restaurant Roshniku is a restaurant near Berat that is definitely worth travelling to.

Berat – Wineries

Many countries around the world have one or more famous wine regions where the winemaking tradition began. Some of these regions include California’s Napa Valley, France’s Burgundy, Spain’s La Rioja and Italy’s Tuscany, among many others. In Albania, Berat is one of the best regions for wine tasting. With many traditional wineries and a steady growth of this market, Berat has become a great destination where locals and tourists spend the day tasting some of the country’s best wines.

In Berat, you have the unique opportunity to savour wine in some of the most historic and traditional UNESCO World Heritage sites. Many of the winemakers will tell you their stories and some of their trade secrets while you sip on a wonderful glass of Albanian wine. Many oenologists confirm that the wonderful Berat wine owes much of its flavour and quality to the region’s outstanding vineyards and their great cultivation.

Albania’s Mediterranean climate, which is particularly beautiful in Berat, provides very favourable conditions for the health of the vines and their lush growth in many varieties. This and the region-specific methods of maturation and fermentation are some of the reasons for Berat’s marvellous wine.
During your visit to Berat, we recommend you to visit the three best wineries listed below:

Çobo

Overlooking the legendary Mount Tomorr and close to the hills that surround the city of Berat, the Çobo family winery offers the ideal opportunity to taste some of the best, 100% authentic Albanian wines while surrounded by the most beautiful scenery. The winery specialises in both red and white wines and produces five different wines.

The winery is a leader in domestic winemaking and technology and is known for the consistently high quality of its products. Çobo wine pairs perfectly with the traditional meat dishes of the region as well as lighter appetisers, especially local cheese and bread and the famous juicy green olives that are only available in Berat!

Nurellari

The Nurellari winery produces delicious, full-bodied red wines that are fermented in oak barrels and have deep burgundy tones. The red varieties of this winery are made from Merlot and Cabernet grapes, which grow particularly well in this region and are especially suitable for rich meat dishes. Of course, the white wine with its more delicate flavours is not neglected either.

The white varieties have sweet aromas and a more subtle flavour and are best suited to starters and seafood dishes. Save room for dessert, as the wine varieties from Nurellari are also the perfect accompaniment to Berat’s infamous sweets.

If you are looking for a small rural restaurant nearby with great views of the River Osum, I can recommend the Baci restaurant. The last few metres there by car are a bit of an adventure, but it’s worth it.

Luani

Berat, a town where a modest winery was founded in 1960, has embraced modern winemaking technologies. Today, the formerly state-owned winery, which was privatised 25 years ago, is called Luani Winery and is a major competitor on the Albanian wine market. History and tradition have favoured this winery, which offers good prices and a wide selection of wines to choose from.

Whether white, red or rosé, there is a wide selection of bottles with different grape varieties, different fermentation times, but with the same great flavour quality. The taste is so full and the colour so enticing that you won’t be able to count the glasses you drink!