Taverna KOÇO — Restaurant in Bashkia Pogradec

Wow, just wow. If you’re looking for the best authentic Albanian food in the area, look no further. Their traditional menu consists of dishes cooked in clay pots. Scrumptious meals bursting with flavour come in HUGE servings, sizzling and fresh straight out of the oven. We had the Koran fish casserole and it was the best thing I ate on my whole Albanian trip - I’ll be dreaming about that caramelised onion, tomato and eggplant base. The waiter told us how the Koran fish is only found in this lake (Ohrid) and one other lake in Russia. How unique! We couldn’t believe the table bread was freshly baked onsite; steaming, fluffy, and crisp. The salad was superbly fresh and full of dark red, succulent tomatoes. The clay pot of cheese was DANGEROUSLY good, and came with an exquisite touch of tomatoes and onion. And to top it all off, they treated us to complimentary cake at the end which was out-of-this-world delicious. Like, you know those rare occasions when you think ‘I will be telling people about this dessert for years to come.’ I was SO full but couldn’t resist eating it ALL because it was THAT GOOD. Oh, and the price was insanely cheap. An absolute feast for €20 equivalent. Undoubtedly the best traditional Albanian restaurant...

Avoid Taverna Koço – worst dining experience in Tushemisht We visited this restaurant as a couple and left extremely disappointed. What should have been a pleasant lakeside lunch turned into a frustrating and unpleasant experience. The soup was inedible. It had a foul odor, more like a bathroom than food, and completely ruined the table. Service was shockingly slow. The staff seemed uninterested, and no effort was made to check on us or explain the delay. The wait was outrageous – nearly one hour for three very small fish. When they finally arrived, they were dry, bland, and far from fresh. We had already finished the fries and "kulaç" and they were already cold.

Overall quality was nowhere near what one would expect from a place in such a popular tourist destination.

Instead of enjoying fresh local dishes, we ended up wasting time and money on a meal that felt careless and disrespectful to the customer.

❌ We will not return, and we would recommend visitors to Tushemisht choose one of the many other restaurants by the lake that actually offer fresh food, reasonable service, and a...

We were very bothered by the loud music. Here is live music, but they use loudspeakers so you can hear the music even far away from the restaurant. We always looked forward to the moment when the music took a 2 minute break and it was quiet. Unfortunately they didn't have "Traditional casserole of koran", so we tried alternative "Casserole of koran fillet", which was koran fish with nuts and heavy cream, not bad but I'm afraid that this combination or maybe something else from the food we ordered didn't make me feel well after all. We also tried the fish soup, which we didn't like, it was bland, tasteless, well nothing you'd want to repeat. They also brought us bread, which we didn't order, but it was warm, soft and tasty, so we didn't mind that they charged...