Çka Ka Qëllu has been on my radar for a while now. I first heard about it several years ago when…read morethey first opened in the Arthur Ave neighborhood - standing out as a traditional Albanian restaurant amongst the sea of Italian eateries. Fast forward to the present day, and they have gained considerable attention. The restaurant has made the NYT's Top 100 Restaurants in NYC list for the past 4 years, they have expanded to two (soon three) other locations, and is a favorite among the social media and celeb crowd (this is allegedly one of Dua Lipa's favorite restaurants in the city). That being said, we thought it would be a great spot to celebrate a family member's birthday - so I booked a table and off we went.
Çka Ka Qëllu is located on Hughes adjacent to the back entrance of the Arthur Ave Retail Market. The restaurant is gorgeous - it's pretty spacious with three main dining rooms. The decor is a showstopper in itself - the exposed stone walls coupled with the abundance of artwork and old world accents placed throughout the dining area make this seem more like a museum than a restaurant. The ethnic music that is piped throughout the restaurant completes the feel. I honestly couldn't stop looking around.
There menu is pretty expansive - most of the items I had not heard of before, but it's also approachable as they spell it out for you in the description what each dish is. We were a party of seven, so to make things easy we aligned to share everything. My brother and I decided to take lead and order items from each section. We decided to start with the ajvar, sausage dip, and tarator. These were all delicious; essentially dips, they all had great flavor and were paired with hot crusty bread mmmm.
We then got a bunch of other dishes: leçenik, burek, fili, fasule with smoked meat, mantia, mazë e zier, and a shop salad. As with the dips, everything here was delicious. It's hard to pick the standouts because everything was so good - honest food, full of flavor and depth. Okay you twisted my arm - if I had to choose, my favorites were the burek and the mazë e zier. I love a good burek, and this one was top drawer. The pull on the mazë e zier was out of this world, yet it was easy to maneuver with great flavor. We ended the meal with one of their grilled dishes - namely the mixed meat combo. We chose five meats and they paired them with some vegetables and potato. At risk of sounding like a broken record - this was delicious as well.
Service was awesome - everyone was welcoming and the food came out at a good pace. Overall, Çka Ka Qëllu is an absolute yes - the food, the decor, and the service were all aces. The hype is real and they deserve all the accolades they have received. Goes without saying, but I would definitely return for another meal - take me back now!