Restaurants, Shops and Services – that make Kosovo a unique place to visit

I recently spent 5 days in Kosovo, on the Balkans Peninsula. While Kosovo doesn’t attract the volume of tourists some of its neighbours do, it’s an interesting country to visit. I felt extremely safe and found most locals I encountered friendly and welcoming. I didn’t see any evidence of antisocial behaviour on the streets or crimes against tourists. 

While I love visiting museums, art galleries and historical sites when travelling, I absolutely love to sit in a local cafe. I always bring my Kindle with me as then I never feel alone as a solo traveller. It’s also a great way to be somewhat invisible, when you are in places where a single female can attract unwanted attention (never the case in Kosovo).

While I am vegetarian, I love to try local specialties and having meals out is one of the activities I look the most forward to.

In this post I am sharing my experiences and observations on food, beverages, shops, entertainment and the other services I saw available in Kosovo. I wrote two other posts on my trip to Kosovo which I encourage you to read as follows (the first one also contains an short overview of the history of the country):

Two Days in Pristina, Kosovo 

Two Days Exploring The Sites In Kosovo

Restaurants and Cafes 

The Kosovar diet is similar to other Balkan nations and it changes seasonally. Fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and bread are the main components. Kebabs, stuffed peppers, sarma (food wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves), flija (layers of crepes) are commonplace. “Tave” is a regional casserole and “Pasulj” is a soup made from white beans, beef and flavoured with paprika. While it’s a landlocked country fish is popular with zander and carp the most popular. 

Breakfast was included in my room rate at my hotel. They didn’t have a restaurant at the hotel and it was available at Cafe Margo on  Boulevard Nina Tereze. I was given a menu which had several options. 

I had the fruit and muesli on three occasions. It included a selection of fruit (pears, apples, blueberries, raspberries and pomegranate). The fruit was very fresh, the milk heated and the portion size perfect for breakfast. It was served with two types of bread, a croissant, honey and jam. I elected to have an americano coffee which was of a very high quality. 

One morning I had an omelette containing spinach and tomatoes. Again the ingredients were extremely fresh and the portion size was appropriate. I lived in the US for many years and while I enjoyed a breakfast or brunch the portion size was always way too large. I also don’t like having potatoes as a breakfast side and prefer something lighter, like the salad this was served with. 

I had lunch and dinner in restaurants every day I was there and the following are my main observations:

PAYMENT – While Kosovo isn’t in the EU, they have adopted the Euro as their currency. Cash was required in most cafes and restaurants. Waiting staff carried wallets and would collect the money at your table and give you your change. No service charge was added to my bills and tipping isn’t expected. On occasions, when I told waiting staff to round up my bill, leaving a small tip, they seemed surprised but grateful. 

PRICE – Vegetarian courses ranged between €3.00-€5.00. Lots of restaurants had the same menu which included pasta, pizza, sandwiches, burgers and local meat dishes. I didn’t see any menu which had a meat or fish main course costing more than €8.00. 

SIZE – Portion size was great. It was the perfect size for lunch and dinner. It’s not US style, where it’s normal to take leftovers home.

SMOKING POLICY – A lot of the locals smoke. While smoking is banned indoors, on occasions it was a little difficult to distinguish between indoors and outdoors. Sometimes patio areas with roofs were considered outdoors and therefore people smoked while sitting there. 

I don’t smoke and don’t like sitting near smokers. After making a mistake the first day and sitting in an area I thought was indoors when it wasn’t, I became more careful. Once an ashtray was on the table, that confirmed it was a smoking area.

Also, it was very normal for sellers to come into restaurants selling cigarettes. 

ETHNIC RESTAURANTS – There are not many ethnic restaurants in the center of Pristina apart from the Chinese restaurant at the Swiss Diamond Hotel. This is one of the city’s most exclusive hotels; it’s on Boulevard Nina Tereze. Some restaurants did serve stir fry’s and I had one, one evening (2nd image below).

I had researched restaurants before I went and knew there was a Himalayan and a Thai restaurant on UCK street. This is about a 5 minute walk from Boulevard Nina Tereze. Both were hard to find as they are upstairs above busy shops and I didn’t see signs outside (they were on the steps of the stairs) . I went to the Himalayan one, which is called “Himalayan Gurka Restaurant”. The interior was quite authentic and had Nepalese staff and it served Indian and Nepalese food. The food wasn’t as spicy as you will get in India, Nepal or some Western countries but it was very tasty. It was also extremely cheap with my main course costing €3.50, rice €1.20, naan €1.00 (first image).

TEA AND COFFEE – The tea and coffee, I had, was always of a very high quality. An expresso cost  €1.00 or €1.20. It was usually served with a glass of water. Turkish coffee is also available in several cafes. This is prepared in a traditional “cezve” and made with very finely ground coffee which isn’t filtered. 

Lots of cafes serve hot tea in traditional glass cups. It also cost  €1.00 or  €1.20 and was served with lemon and sugar.

WINE – As Kosovo is a Muslim country not all cafes and restaurants serve alcohol. Lots of cafes only serve non-alcoholic beverages.

Most restaurants I visited served wine in the 187ml bottle. I was always served the same white wine by “Tikves Alexandria”. This is from North Macedonia and bottles served in Kosovo had a distinctive pink label on them with a map of Kosovo on it.

The most I paid was €3.50 and the cheapest was €2.50. 

RAKIA – is a traditional fruit style brandy made from grapes and it is served cold or hot. 

BOZA – is an non-alcoholic drink made from maize and wheat. It’s very light and easy to drink, especially on a hot day. 

ICE CREAM AND DESSERTS – The locals clearly like ice cream as I saw people eat it regularly. There are a few ice cream sellers on Boulevard Nina Tereze. Also, several cafes and restaurants had ice cream fridges on the patio. People were purchasing cones to eat while walking and others were having some served in bowels at the tables. I bought a cone one day and it cost €1.00 and the ice cream was delicious.

Most restaurants had a large selection of desserts including cakes, sundaes, flans etc. They were priced between  €2.00 –  €4.00. 

SERVICE – I was always welcomed in every cafe and restaurant I went to. I was never refused a table, as a single traveller, which happens to me on occasions. Service was often slow but it usually seemed as if staff numbers working were low. Waiting staff always appeared to be very busy and would acknowledge me immediately and bring me a menu. Food sometimes took awhile to be served, but everything was always freshly prepared. 

Shops 

While there were some US and European global branded shops, there were lots of smaller shops also. Some clothes shops contained clothes made in Turkey, Albania and South East Asian countries. There are some really interesting independent shops and I encourage you to go into them. There were lots of unique styles and everything was priced extremely competitively.

Benetton and several other European shops I went into had flags on the racks saying where clothes were made. I hadn’t seen such labels as visible before. I went into one supermarket to look for some chocolate made in Kosovo and there were also flags on all the shelves identifying where all items were made. Benetton is housed in a beautiful building (formerly the Union Hotel) right at the top of Boulevard Nina Tereze.

Weddings and formal events must be very commonplace in Kosovo as there are shops containing dresses, formal gowns and mens suits everywhere. There are also dressmakers and tailors premises on all streets.

There were lots of jewellery, mainly selling gold items, in Prizren (the 2nd largest city in Kosovo). A long street contained shop after shop with a huge array of jewellery. It reminded me of streets I had seen in Indian cities. 

Vending machines and fridges were often outside the premises so you selected your item and brought it inside to pay. I thought it was great to see that shoplifting and retail crimes must not be very common. Padlocks were on the fridges when the shops were closed.

The Bazaar (Market)

The main Bazaar in Pristina, is well worth visiting. It is packed with stalls selling fruit, vegetables, household goods, leather items, clothes and lots of other things. It didn’t feel unsafe or overly crowded on the three occasions I walked through it. Locals were purchasing items and conversing with the sellers. As I visited during a quiet time, I didn’t see many tourists in the city, let alone in the Bazaar. 

I purchased some almonds and brazil nuts from a stall selling a huge array of nuts, cereals, herbs and spices. While they were cheaper than I’d pay for in a supermarket here in Italy, they were the only purchases I made that I didn’t think were a bargain !

Concerts

There were concerts on the squares at both ends of Boulevard Nina Tereze twice on the evenings I was in Pristina. One started at 4pm and had a wide array of entertainment from children’s choirs to jazz bands to rock groups. Lots of chairs were available in front of the stage for people to sit on. People were dancing and the atmosphere was very jovial. A waiter told me that they have concerts here all year around. 

Personal Services 

There are lots of barbers, hair salons and nail salons in Pristina and Prizren. I had a manicure one day. It was quite basic but the interior was very clean and the process very hygienically managed. It cost  €11.00 for a gel manicure and it lasted longer than any I have had anywhere else in the World. 

Street Art 

I shared at lot of information on the various monuments in Pristina in my blog on the city. There is also lots of great street art everywhere. You really can spend hours walking around the city looking at the monuments and the street art. Some of the art is political like the first image below and some artistic and somewhat frivolous. 

WIFI – There isn’t any public WIFI in Kosovo. You can purchase sim cards for approximately €6.00. I didn’t get one as I had read that google maps isn’t reliable. I bought a really good map, to find my way around Pristina, and went old school and thankfully I never got lost !

You really can have an extremely cheap holiday in Pristina, while eating out and having good quality food. Hygiene appeared to be of a high standard and bathrooms were also very clean. If you send postcards to friends and family you can send them anywhere in the World for €0.50. Also, when I visited, they had stamps to commemorate probably the 2nd most famous Kosovan lady – the singer Rita Ora (for more expensive letters).

As I have said in my other two posts, I don’t think Kosovo is the type of country every tourist will enjoy. If you like having a detailed itinerary, which doesn’t change, this isn’t the place for you to visit. However, if you are flexible and don’t get upset when things don’t go to plan, you will probably love it. If you enjoy shopping and eating out, I strongly suggest you add Kosovo to your itinerary when visiting this part of mainland Europe.