While London can stake a claim as arguably the best place on earth for eating any cuisine that comes to mind, finding Balkan food here has never been the easiest task. The capital has a surprisingly small number of places offering the tastes, flavours and traditional dishes from the region.
While it's impossible to lump together all of the food from the various countries in the Balkans — which by most definitions includes Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Croatia, sometimes Greece and parts of Turkey and Serbia — there are some common dishes.
Think hot filo pastries filled with spinach or spiced ground beef, fresh salads with tangy chunks of brined cheese, and deeply satisfying bean soups flavoured with smoked meat.
Mentor Bokciu, who in 2020 opened Illyrian Grill House, says its time people paid more attention to the region.
“An Albanian restaurant was something that was missing in England and in London,” says the 40-year-old . “The idea was for them to have somewhere where [Albanians in London] could show their kids where they come from and what their culture is like.”
But its appeal has proved broader than that, and the restaurant is now so popular it's now doubling in size, and attracts many keen to try Albanian cuisine for the first time.
“Albanian cuisine, like food from all the Balkans, is very old fashioned. It hasn’t changed a lot. Everything takes a long time to prepare and cook. It’s like going back to your mum and dad’s for dinner — that’s how I’d describe it. For me, it’s up there in the top 10 cuisines of the world,” Bokciu says.
I'd agree that Balkan food, with its emphasis on cooking simple food well, is utterly delicious. My partner is an Albanian from Kosovo and I’ve seen his mum make filo pastry from scratch as if it were nothing — stretching out the dough with mastery until it’s translucently thin — and using it to make pumpkin pite (a flakey pie filled with the sweet, soft squash) or homemade, syrupy, nutty, irresistible baklava.
Keen to find the like in London, I've been doing my research and below is my list of the best places to eat Balkan food in the capital. If you know of any others that I’ve missed out, tell me — I'm at @giuliacrouch on Instagram and Twitter.
Illyrian Grill House
A traditional Albanian restaurant in London, Illyrian Grill House is decked out in old-world decor and serves up classic dishes from the different regions of Albania. To start, the likes of crispy burek filled with cheese, spinach or pumpkin or fli, a Kosovan dish of layered pancakes cooked layer by layer. As the restaurant name suggests, elsewhere there’s a lot of meat on the menu, and owner Mentor Bokciu suggests trying the tave dheu, beef cooked in a clay pot with peppers, tomatoes, garlic and cheese. They also make a type of cornbread to dip in yoghurt, which is proving particularly popular among American customers.
For pudding, enjoy the classic trileçe, a version of the Mexican tres leche (a milk soaked cake) topped with a dark caramel and the go-to pudding in Albania and Kosovo. Interestingly, it's thought that the Mexican dessert was adopted so far from home owing to the popularity of Latin American soap operas in Albania, with chefs trying to work out the recipe from there.
55 Green Lane, N13 4TD, illyriangrillhouse.co.uk
Mystic Burek
Mystic Burek is a permanent home for Spasia Dinkovski’s glorious filo pastry pies — which she started selling through her Instagram account in 2020 as a lockdown project, inspired by her North Macedonian grandmother, who passed down her hand-written cookbook before she died.
“The first page I opened was for a breakfast pie with egg and cheese in it so I made that, and once I’d gotten to grips with the pastry I started thinking, what else can I put in this?” says Dinkovski.
Unhampered by tradition, Dinkovski let her mind run wild, coming up with creative combinations for her bureks. Instead of the normal cheese or meat, there are options such as beef, sage butter, celeriac and taleggio or creamed spinach, parmesan, potato and Kurdish chilli. She’ll be changing up the flavours regularly based on what’s in season and what she fancies.
“The fillings are meant to reflect the fact that I’m second-generation which I think is something to celebrate. I have this love affair with the idea of coming from this place [Macedonia] but being from London I really want my food to represent that too.”
The pastry is perfectly golden and flakey, and there are several dips to dunk a hot pie in, including a sweet red pepper ajvar. Dinkovski is also planning a gorgonzola dolce slice and, truly embracing her Britishness, a lamb one to be dipped in hot gravy.
There’s also pudding, this month in the form of a sour cherry baklava bun as ridiculously good as it sounds.
229 Dartmouth Road, SE26 4QY, mysticburek.com
The Lacy Nook
The Lacy Nook in Walthamstow is run by Macedonian Elena Smileva, who says that being from the Balkans, food has always been a central to her life and culture. “For me, food evokes memories of childhood, family, friends, celebrations, love, happiness and joy. Waking up every day with the thought of eating something that will make you smile is one step closer to a good life,” she says. “To me food never gets boring.”
Smileva's menu is a mix of sharing plates from “Croatia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and all across the Balkan peninsula”, meaning its truly the place to go for a taste of the Balkans.
Most of the cooking is done over an open fire, and here’s fire baked feta in a clay pot with spicy green peppers, confit cherry tomatoes and olives or beef cevapi (small, minced beef patties) served with ajvar, kajmak (a matured, savoury clotted cream or cheese), red onion salad and Balkan bread.
But it's the vegetable dishes, such as charred broccoli, aubergine puree, tahini, chilli-walnut brittle, that Smileva's most proud of. “Meat is just a side dish to the vegetables,” she says. “I grew up with my grandma, who always made sure there was freshly cooked food on the table. There was no such thing as fast food when I was growing up. We only ate what was seasonal, cheap, and available at the farmer’s market which she used to go to every day.”
Now Smileva, who first opened her restaurant in Stoke Newington but had to relocate when rents doubled, says: “The idea behind the restaurant is to cook simple food very well, feed the neighbourhood, and replicate the Balkan warmth.”
Wood Street Studios, E17 3FU, thelacynook.com
Caffe Bonego
This cafe, restaurant and bar serves food from across the Balkans and delicious Macedonian wines, which are getting more and more attention now and rightly so. Go for Balkan classics like cevapi, sarma (a mix of meat and rice wrapped up in fermented cabbage leaves), beef goulash with mash and, my favourite, pasulj — a bean soup with spices and smoked pork. Of course there’s burek as well as traditional salads such as shopska (chunkily-cut tomato, cucumber, feta cheese and onion) and grilled peppers with garlic.
170 Goldhawk Road, W12 8HJ, bonego.co.uk
Mugi's Coffee Bar
This family-run Montenegrin cafe and deli in West London is a hub for Balkan expats and those new to the cuisine, serving all the favourites from burek to sarma to bean soup. Meat lovers should try the rotisserie-style lamb and pork and those with a sweet tooth can enjoy the baklava and tulumba (fried batter soaked in syrup). Having a feast at home? Order an entire suckling pig or spit-roast lamb, both of which are slow-roasted over a fire for around five hours. The deli is also packed full of favourite Balkan ingredients such as the classic seasoning Vegeta, jars of sweet, spicy ajvar, and bags of Turkish coffee.
15 Station Parade, W5 3LD, mugicoffeebar.co.uk
Peckham Bazaar
Albanian-born John Gionaleka opened this south London spot in 2015 serving a “pan-Balkan mezze and grill”.
The classically trained chef isn’t doing Albanian home-cooking but instead is elevating the cuisine and taking influence from across the region. There’s an aged Scottish sirloin kebab, Greek fava, shakshuka and celeriac salad, and courgette fritters, kohlrabi, radishes, cucumber and tarator (a yoghurt dip made with cucumber and herbs). For dessert there’s an orange scented baklava and strawberry sorbet aka heaven.
Gionaleka says he picked a “pan-Balkan” approach to highlight what the region has in common. “For far too long the Balkans have been defined by its differences but, throughout it all, what is undeniable is that the communities shared low frequency culture with each other — things like music and food — and these things transcended political differences.”
The various countries have their specialities, he adds: the Bosnian burek makers, Macedonian ajvar, Greek fish cooking, Kosovan fli and the Albanians’ knack with seasoning, but there are “many overlaps”, which is what he likes to celebrate.
Of Peckham Bazaar he says: “We’re not recreating a time or a place, it’s a whole experience of the region — a more holistic perspective to underline our similarities.”
119 Consort Road, SE15 3RU, peckhambazaar.com
Rea’s Place
This Kosovan, family-run cafe on the corner of Child’s Hill park in Golders Green has freshly baked burek, grilled spicy suxhuk sausage (a must try) as well as other grilled meats and an array of sweet treats including the milky-soft trileçe and sheqerpare, a soft, almond sponge soaked in syrup. They like to soak things in syrup in the Balkans.
33 Hodford Road, NW11 8NL, 020 8731 9551
Prizreni Cafe
This unassuming, little cafe in north London is serving quality Albanian food. Named after a beautiful city in Kosovo, you’ll find freshly baked flatbreads and some of the best traditional burek in town (with cheese or meat) as well as all of the classic meat dishes. I’d go for the meat-stuffed slow-roasted peppers and the qyfte, small, tasty meatballs that come with the delicious homemade bread and salad. There’s also rice pudding on the menu for dessert — another favourite of the region.
