Resort Pepa is a countryside restaurant and bar on the Cërrik to Gramsh road, set in a stone-and-timber lodge with lawns, a swimming pool and views over the Shkumbin valley. The kitchen serves Albanian and European dishes, with grilled meats, steaks and shared platters at the centre, and the grounds work for family lunches and celebrations as much as for a quiet dinner.
Why We Love It
Ten minutes out of Elbasan the noise drops away and lunch turns into an afternoon: grilled meat on the table, kids on the lawn and hills in every window. The welcome has the unhurried warmth of a family place, which is exactly what it is.
Deviseld is a traditional Albanian restaurant on the Elbasan to Cërrik road, just past the Shkumbin bridge, with a warm timber-and-kilim dining room and long tables set out under fruit trees in the garden. The menu runs to around fifty dishes built on regional cooking: village breakfasts of cheese, honey and preserves, slow-roasted lamb, grilled meats, meze boards and clay-pot bakes.
Why We Love It
Sunday lunch here means a table under the trees, a board of Elbasan cheeses and cured meats to start, and lamb that has spent hours in the oven arriving on a wooden plank. The cooking is honest and generous, and the garden makes it very easy to stay for one more coffee.
Baçe Mbret is a countryside garden restaurant in Labinot-Fushë, a short drive from Elbasan, set among old trees, ponds and a running stream with the mountains behind. The kitchen brings together Elbasan specialities such as the tavë kosi it takes its name from and fërgesë, wider Albanian classics like lamb in a clay pot, and a handful of international plates, served in a stone-and-timber dining room or at tables spread through the garden.
Why We Love It
The sound of water follows you from the car park to the table, and lunch under the trees stretches out the way a Sunday in the countryside should. The tavë comes bubbling from the oven, and the fireplace inside makes the place just as inviting when the weather turns.
Te Arrat is a farm restaurant on the road between Elbasan and Cërrik, part of the Bullari natural farm and open daily for lunch and dinner. The kitchen serves traditional Albanian cooking built on the farm's own produce, in a large timber-roofed hall decorated with woven kilims and on terraces looking over the fields and vegetable plots.
Why We Love It
The walk in past the giant walnut sculptures, the stream and the rows of vegetables sets the tone: what lands on the table was grown a few steps away. Long wooden tables, a glass of homemade raki and platters of farm cheese and roasted vegetables make this the kind of Sunday lunch that families from Elbasan drive out for.
