Çka Ka Qëllu — Restaurant in New York

The Good The food: overall great - our first time eating Albanian, but we tried many dishes and loved some. Particularly, the lecenik, and the suxhuk + qofte from the grill were delicious!

The Bad Hostess: Opentable had a million open reservations, so we just walked in Sunday 530pm. But the hostess said it was full with an hour+ wait, or we could sit outside. We chose to brave the cold, but she said she would bring us inside if anything happened to open up. That was nice! Except there were at least 4 tables that cleared and were given away to other parties before we caught one and asked, and THEN were finally moved in. Upon arrival and until we left, we spied quite a few other open tables that stayed empty. That honestly felt like shit.

Then one time, she came by to get us fresh plates when some food arrived, which was nice, but then she took our dirty ones and fully disappeared - so we sat staring at our food with no utensils/plates, no sign of anyone, until she eventually walked back in, saw us, and then remembered. It also took her 10 minutes to get our check after we asked. Either she was very distracted or we had offended her, and I honestly don't think it was that busy tonight.

Kitchen: food was extremely slow - we waited over 30 minutes for the baked cheese, and another 10 for the lecenik, and another 20 after for our mains.

Our Branzino was completely RAW in the center. Not even close to cooked. They did send us a new one, but it's just unfortunate since a whole fish takes time to grill.

The Baked Cheese dip is a whopping $16 for a tiny amount of feta + olive oil + seasoning. That's the entire dish - at most 6oz of feta. I've never sent a dish back to the kitchen but damn I was close.

Service: when we first were seated outside, no one came to check on us! We took our time lookin at the menu, but they fully forgot about us, so we had to go inside after 20 minutes to ask to order. We had to constantly flag people down to fill our empty waters or ask about missing/slow dishes. I don't want to be a problematic table, but it sucks to have to hunt people down for food and water in a restaurant. Obviously, a whole new grilled fish took time, but we weren't just leaning back, slowly dining and indulging. The entire dinner took THREE hours.

Overall: For me, food is the most important part of a restaurant, and I had high expectations coming in - and they were met! I would happily come back and eat, if not for the outrageous number of issues with service/the experience.

I try to be understanding of when restaurants get slammed, but they didn't look like they were even close to capacity, so I don't understand what happened tonight, but we left pretty...

This place was absolutely incredible. We will definitely be coming back here. They also have two other locations (which we haven’t been to, but will definitely go to).

First off, stepping into this restaurant was like stepping into an old world restaurant. There’s a really rustic, charming vibe that is absolutely transportive. We went for dinner in the middle of the week, so we were the old table while we were there, but the staff was so lovely and attentive. They definitely have a lot of pride for the restaurant and food and I get why.

Now on to the food. Wow. The food was amazing and the price was so wildly reasonable. We started with the sausage dip, the pickled pepper, and the sesame baked cheese. The pickled pepper had the perfect bite to it and was a little spicy (think how a banana pepper is spicy) with great flavors for the veggies inside the pepper. The sausage dip was both familiar and interesting and so perfectly delicious. It came with these warm bread roll things that were steaming when we tore them open. The cheese was also nice, especially paired with the bread. We also had the Fli which is kind of like a baked layer pastry dish served with a feta cheese and was so good.

Then we had the fasule with suxhuk. It’s essentially a white bean stew/soup with a type of sausage in it. This was so hearty and comforting. I could eat a bowl of it in front of the fire on a winter day. It was simple with a depth of flavor that was on point. We also had the grilled octopus, which was cooked well and very delicious.

Overall, the meal was an absolute delight and we truly had a great time. Everything from the ambiance to the service to the food to the price point made this place an...

I am writing this review based on my experience from the Manhattan location of this Albanian restaurant, and let me tell you, this place is phenomenal. I am Albanian, born here in the States, but I lived in Albania for a while, and then came back here and have lived here most of my life. I consider myself a culinary aficionado and have a lot of experience with all sorts of cuisines, especially of course, Albanian cuisine, and I must say this is arguably the best Albanian restaurant I have ever been to in my life. Yes you heard that this place has better food than pretty much any Albanian restaurant in Albania I've been to, and I've been to some really fantastic restaurants in Albania.

This place isn't pretentious, nor does it try to pretend it serves anything other than truly authentic Albanian food. It sells extremely delicious food made by the freshest ingredients and served appropriately (the Albanian traditional way). Portion sizes are on point, and the prices are very reasonable especially for the quality and considering this is NYC.

Put it like this, I went to this place this past Saturday, and that day for lunch I went to the famous Emily's where I had their Burger (credited by most to be the best in America). It truly was a phenomenal meal, yet, I think the food that I had here at Cka Ka Qellu for dinner 9 hours later was better than Emily's! That should just tell you how great this restaurant is. I recommend it to everyone. This is one of the best restaurants I have been to my life, and as an Albanian, I am proud that it represents our traditional cuisine in such a...