New York City has a surprisingly large Albanian population. I first became aware of this when I was at a COVID test site at LaGuardia Airport and saw the list of languages for which the test site had interpreters. I recognized most of the languages, but the one that stood out as unusual was called Shqip, which I learned was the Albanian word for the Albanian language.
The Bronx is the center of New York City’s Albanian population. A good portion of the Albanian-Americans in the Bronx are Arbëreshë people, who are Albanians who fled to Southern Italy, especially Calabria, to escape the Ottoman invasion of Albania. Many Arbëreshë-Americans have assimilated into the larger Southern Italian communities in the US—in this case, the large Calabrian population of Bronx Little Italy. In fact, the first location of Çka Ka Qëllu, despite being Albanian and not Arbëreshë, was in Bronx Little Italy. We visited the Midtown location, though, since that was more convenient for us.
As our appetizer, we got some ajvar, a popular condiment throughout the Balkans. Originally a substitute for caviar when supply ran short, ajvar is part of a group of preserved foods associated with winter in the Balkans. It’s made of preserved peppers, which can be sweet, pungent, or spicy, depending on the variety, and sometimes eggplants. The version at Çka Ka Qëllu was the piquant sort, made without eggplants, and was very tasty, especially with their warm homemade bread.
Our next course was fli, a slice of a pie made of layers of crepes. Fli is the national dish of Kosovo (which is predominantly ethnically Albanian) and is quite a rustic dish, with the layers being much crunchier and thicker than we were expecting. A very unique dish.
Our final courses are unfortunately not pictured, but were first fasul, a hearty bean soup with dried smoked meat (very tasty), and what might have been the highlight of the whole meal, berxolle dukagjini. This was a dish of veal, pounded flat, stuffed with creamy kashkaval cheese, and topped with a mushroom gravy. Perfection.
Çka Ka Qëllu
118 E 31st St
New York, NY 10016
2321 Hughes Ave
The Bronx, NY 10458