If you decided to count all the bakeries in Prishtina, you would probably lose count quickly because, despite being a small city, it has a lot of bakeries. That is the result of the fact that in the past, owning a bakery used to be the business to be in, especially since baking creatively with the main ingredients (flour, salt, water, eggs) came naturally to a lot of Kosovars, and it was not as expensive as doing something more elaborate.

One of the most popular bakeries among locals is Arena, a small bakery in Mbikurriz, the upper level of Kurrizi. It has pastries of all types: from sweet to savoury, and in Albanian, they are known as Kifle. You can find kifle with no filling or with chocolate, jam, cheese,  or sausage. And byrek or mantia with meat, spinach, and cheese. There are also rows of different kinds of bread, from which pitalka is the most popular, especially when it is hot from the oven, then it’s absolutely mouthwatering!

During the summer, they put some chairs and tables outside where you can enjoy the food, however, it’s more of a local ritual to go grab the goods (my personal favorites: the 5 cent-plain kifles) and sit at the park around the corner. This way we get to enjoy both the food and the view!