Mensa Hamburg Tirana

This one is for those of you who really want to feel like a local! Located in the heart of Tirana’s Qyteti Studenti (Student City), Mensa Hamburg provides comfort food for all.

I was recently introduced to this quaint little cafeteria serving the most warming and delicious home-cooked meals by a team of missionaries from Norway who had made it their local during their time in Tirana. The simple cafeteria is nostalgic and takes you back to simpler times. I would note that none of the staff speaks English, so make sure you have a local or Google translate to hand if you don’t speak Albanian.

While I have described a lot of places in Tirana as serving traditional food, generally, the other areas tend to provide still very tasty but more ‘fancy’ versions of dishes; I say this with love, but this is not something that Mensa does at all! The food here is simple - classic dishes cooked to perfection by the team of grandmas behind the hatch and served as you would at home with no bells and whistles.

The food at Mensa is also very reasonable - on my most recent visit, I tucked into a bowl of Tasqebap, pilaf and turns, and I don’t think I spent a penny over 600lek.