Mullixhiu — Restaurant in Tirana Municipality

I booked a table for me and my husband to celebrate his birthday in Tirana. We love good food. I work in the coffee industry in a cafe that is also a part of a fine dining fish restaurant and natural wine bar. We enjoy good food and not afraid to try things that are unusual. So we were looking forward to this place.

Upon arrival, it was very hectic. We were seated and given the tasting menu. Before we arrived, I sent them two emails asking if I could have a vegetarian/pescatarian menu. They never responded. So I thought I could just order from their A La Carte menu that is advertised.

My husband ordered the tasting menu, and we asked to see the a la carte menu. The waiter seemed a little annoyed and gave me the menu reluctantly.

I felt super uncomfortable and un-welcomed right away. My husband assured me that it would get better.

The waiter came back after 2 minutes and said I needed to order my food straight away and that he didn't have time to wait. I panicked ordered three food items. A salad, roasted veg, and trout.

My husband received his first course. He was given a salad but the waiter didn't say anything about the food. He just dropped it off and said enjoy. He then panic ran to the other side of the dining room to help more customers.

The salad flavors seemed odd and quite sour, but we shrugged it off knowing that we were here to try different kind of food which can sometimes be a risk... He enjoyed the soup with veal, and the 3rd course. Nothing mind blowing but it was ok.

Then he received the beef cheeks. They unfortunately had a rancid odor. It did not smell right. I work with natural coffee beans and natural wine and those drinks can produce a fermented farmy like smell. But this... this was different.

He had maybe a few bites before having to stop. They paired it with a fli pastry which was sweet with honey, yet the richness from the meat and smell just put us off.

He then received the fermented grain dish. This was veggie so we were going to share this... We cannot really explain it, but the food was so strong and everything tasted unbalanced. It was unpleasant to eat.

The 6th course cracked us up at this point. The menu said quail with polenta in a plum sauce. However, the waiter informed us that they ran out of quail so now my husband was going to be served baby goat. Not our first choice but ok.

I received my trout dish. It was cut up trout placed in a bowl with some broth. It looked as if it had been taken from the freezer, boiled, and slapped in a bowl. It was not pleasant at all. I had a few bites before leaving it to the side. I wasn’t going to take a chance eating bad fish. The smell was not great.

My husband was told once again by the waiter that now, they've ran out of goat. So now he was getting a “surprise” Just what we wanted at this point.

He was given veal next to polenta. The veal was cooked well and he really enjoyed that. However, the polenta was bland and there was nothing that made the dish pop. There was just veal and plain polenta. No sauce and we could not taste the plum. Seemed like a rushed option as they had run out of everything else.

The only thing that could save us at this point was the dessert.

Finally, the waiter brought us a small milk cake with honey and ice cream. It was tiny but we both enjoyed it very much.

We quickly paid and left soon after. We weren’t sure if we should laugh or cry at the experience. The service was bad. The trout was unpleasant. And my husband truly only enjoyed about 3 out of 7 dishes. And even then, the few he did like were not mind blowing.

This place lacks passion and care. As a foodie and hospitality worker, please do...

I had read about and booked Mullixhiu before coming to Albania. I noticed the varying Google reviews earlier in the evening, but figured Albanian food might just not be for everyone - we ought to give it a try whilst here.

The first red flag (not to be confused with the Albanian flag) appeared as soon as we sat down. They didn’t have the wine we chose from their wine list - fine. The waiter nonchalantly explained ‘it is an eight year old menu’ - interesting. Mind the wine list is printed on the back of the same sheet of paper as the 7 dish tasting menu.

We eat the first couple of dishes. Not blowing us away but not terrible. Maybe it is just that Albanian food is simple and a little bland. There are ingredients missing. Pickled vegetables in the Qiqfi? Nowhere to be found. At least the olive oil is nice and there is plenty of it with each dish. Would be good to have some bread. Waiter comes around and we ask for bread - he explains the restaurant is named after the Albanian word for miller and seems shocked the other waiter (who is new to the job) hasn’t offered us bread. The bread arrives in the shape of a cut up loaf with a quarter of the flavour of the freshly baked Albanian bread bun we were given at a steak house the previous night.

The Fli is our favourite dish. The waiter sells this one to us and it’s a nice combination of sweet and savoury. The chef who has grated cheese over mine has also dropped the last chunk into the dish. I do this sometimes when I cook for myself at home. Lucky me, the cheese is nice.

Then things start going downhill. The fermented mullberries in the next dish appear to have been replaced by blueberries, although no mention is made of this. Then there’s a long wait - the first few dishes have come at a lovely, steady pace. Eventually a waiter comes out and tells us the quail is finished. Chef can replace it with ‘baby goat’, if that’s okay with us. We accept. For better or worse chef must have been cooking the lamb since before we agreed to the replacement - it arrives quickly but the lamb is overcooked and the polenta is stodgy and lumpy. The plum sauce can barely be seen and definitely not tasted. When asked, the waiter assures me it’s there. I am confused by how a restaurant which takes bookings and has a set tasting menu can run out of so many ingredients last minute.

Dessert is milk pie (essentially a crustless baked cheesecake?), with milk ice cream. It sure tastes of milk, and little else.

And so, we finish our meal, all in all disappointed. The waiter doesn’t ask us what we thought of the meal as a whole until after we’ve paid. Then he says, chef is just trying things, because some people don’t like Albanian food. I think we could probably like Albanian food. But we didn’t enjoy our meal at Mullixhiu, and it did feel like (understandably if they’ve cooked it day in and out for 8 years) the chefs didn’t enjoy...

Mullixhiu Restaurant: "I would like to but I can't" I went to the restaurant last night with my wife for a romantic dinner. The setting is picturesque and they tried to create the atmosphere of an Albanian tavern with rustic furnishings and original solutions such as cutlery in drawers placed on the tables. However, you could see that the setting was neglected and was only saved by the poor lighting that avoided highlighting the defects of the furnishings such as sockets and electrical cables left lying around (which in a real Albanian tavern you would find!). We had booked for 9 pm and the table was available as soon as we arrived. The service was welcoming, fast without waiting and punctual, in particular the one who I believe to be the head waiter went around the tables and speaking several languages ​​explained the dishes and took care of the bystanders; this also because all the customers were foreigners. For the choice of wine, the wine list offers only Albanian wines, a right choice in my opinion since Albanian wine production has now matured and offers interesting products even if a little too expensive in terms of quality/price ratio. For example, we took a bottle of Serina Premimum 2021 from the Nurellari winery in Berat at a cost of around €50; a price that if compared for example to the Italian market, also considering the Albanian import taxes, would certainly have offered very interesting and more valid choices. It must also be said that, although only Albanian products were offered, not all the labels on the wine list were available and therefore we asked the head waiter for advice who in any case directed us to an interesting product. For the food, we ordered the 7-course tasting menu and the food arrived quickly with the right pauses between one course and another. The courses followed one another between lights and shadows, not so much for the quality of the raw materials, but the preparation of some courses. In fact, some dishes were too salty, like the winter salad of pumpkin and dried tomatoes, or had an unpleasant aftertaste like the puree with plum sauce that accompanied the quails that were well cooked but tasteless. This was a shame because the general idea of ​​​​reproposing dishes of typical Albanian cuisine in a modern key is absolutely excellent. Perhaps, the advice I feel like giving, is to order other dishes from the à la carte menu and avoid the tasting menu. Which is what we will do next time. The price paid in the end, apart from the wine as mentioned above, is consistent with the work done in the kitchen and the attention paid to the service. In essence it is a restaurant with great potential that gets lost in the details that if taken care of a little more would create a location where you can return to eat several times! This is why the title of "I would like to do it but I can't". In any case, try it...