Rustemi
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Restaurant Rustemi

Eat what makes you happy.

A clay dish fresh from the oven, its cheese crust browned in patches

Traditional Albanian food, from a halal kitchen in Berat.

Rustemi Traditional Food is a women-owned restaurant in Berat. The kitchen is halal certified and cooks the dishes Albanians grow up with: tavë kosi and moussaka baked in clay, fërgesë, stuffed peppers, grilled meats, and ekmek kadaif with cream to finish. It's open every day from 10:00 to 22:00, and a meal here usually comes to ALL 500–1,000 a person.

Guests travel a long way for it. Hundreds of Google reviews mention the halal food, some from visitors who came from as far as London, and 68 of them mention the same small surprise: a dessert on the house.

Window table at Rustemi beside a green plant wall, with the hillside of Berat outside

Eat and drink the Albanian way.

Traditional dishes

Tradicionale

Tavë kosi, moussaka, tavë dheu, fërgesë, stuffed peppers and eggplant: the dishes Albanian families cook at home, baked here and brought to the table in clay.

Traditional

From the grill

Zgara

Grilled beef steak and chicken fillet, the traditional Viennese and romstek, lamb by the half kilo, or mixed meats for two. Add oven potatoes, sour cream or a salad on the side.

Grill

Desserts

Ëmbëlsira

Ekmek kadaif with cream is the dessert guests write about. Trileçe and coconut cake turn up in the reviews too, and very often a dessert comes on the house.

Desserts

Certified

Halal

The whole kitchen is halal certified, so there's nothing to check and nothing to ask. It's why 597 Google reviews mention the halal food.

Why halal

Halal.

Over the door the sign reads Rustemi Traditional Food Berat, with حلال beneath it. Everything served inside comes from a halal-certified kitchen, which is why so many travellers plan a meal here: guests have come from as far as London for it.

The drinks list keeps it simple too: ayran, juices, soft drinks, coffee and tea, and a 0% beer. Sit inside in the air conditioning or outside on the terrace.

The front of Rustemi Traditional Food Berat, with the halal sign above the terrace

Signature dishes

What guests order.

Four plates from the Rustemi kitchen, photographed at the table.

Tavë kosi

Lamb baked under a golden yogurt crust. ALL 700

Albania's best-known dish, and one of the two plates Google lists as popular here, as "baked lamb with cheese topping". Lamb is baked in a clay dish under a thick layer of yogurt and egg until the top sets and browns in patches. It comes to the table in the clay pot it was baked in.

Tavë kosi in a brown clay pot, the top golden and browned in patches

Vienez Berati

The traditional Berat-style Viennese. ALL 500

A thin cutlet, breaded and fried until crisp, served on a bed of lettuce. Today's menu lists it under traditional meat; the restaurant's older menus called it Vienez Berati, Berat's own Viennese. Add oven-baked potatoes, sour cream or a salad from the garnish list.

Breaded Viennese cutlet on lettuce with oven potatoes, on a pale blue plate

Sallatë greke

Greek salad. ALL 400

Tomato, cucumber, onion and thick slabs of white cheese, dressed simply. With sour cream, the Berat olives and a basket of bread it makes a meal on its own, or a fresh start before a clay pot of moussaka.

Greek salad with cubes of white cheese, cucumber, tomato and onion

Trileçe

Three-milk cake with a caramel top

A light sponge soaked in three kinds of milk, finished with a dark caramel glaze and served in a pool of its own milk. Guests name it in their reviews next to the kadaif and the coconut cake. Ask what's on today: very often one comes on the house.

A square of trileçe with a caramel top on a textured glass plate
A glass of custard topped with jam and crushed walnuts on a Rustemi placemat

More than you ordered.

Sixty-eight Google reviews mention the same thing: a dessert that arrives at the end of the meal without anyone ordering it. It's a small gesture, and the one guests remember on the way out.

See desserts

Guests become family.

Rustemi is women-owned, and eating here feels like eating at someone's home: a family atmosphere, traditional food, and a dessert brought out on the house.

Book ahead on WhatsApp and tell us how many you are. Inside, the rooms are air-conditioned; outside, there's a terrace.

4.9 on Google · 8,093 reviews

“Serves amazing traditional Albanian food, and is Halal certified”

Avais S., Google review

“Their food is that great!”

Ann R., Google review
Reserve a table

Berat.
Home of Rustemi.

Berat is the city of a thousand windows, on the Osum river. Rustemi Traditional Food is in town, at Berat 5002.

From the window tables you look out at stone streets, cypresses and the domes across the road. Outside, the terrace sits under a wooden pergola, and inside the rooms are air-conditioned.

Open every day, 10:00 to 22:00. Eat in, take away, or order delivery.

View from a Rustemi window table: domes, a stone tower and cypress trees in Berat

Visit

Rustemi Traditional Food Berat
Berat 5002, Albania
Plus code PX33+RX

Opening hours:
Daily 10:00–22:00

Price: ALL 500–1,000 per person
Dine-in · Takeaway · Delivery
Air-conditioned indoor seating and an outdoor terrace

Directions on Google Maps

+355 68 608 0400 Reserve on WhatsApp