A series of posts where I share my experience as vegan, in the hope to help other vegans to gather information about a certain country
Albania is one of the countries where I found it more difficult to eat as a vegan. Both outside and at home.
I traveled in Albania from October 2021 to January 2022, for a month I traveled with my van from the north to the deepest south coast, I then explored the inland, mostly the south-east (Gjirokaster, Fier, Berat, ...). I then spent a month in Tirana and a month in the mountain town Korca, which is very close to the border with Greece and Macedonia.
In all this time I had access to a fully equipped kitchen since both my van and the flats I rented had this option.
Supermarkets in Albania
Supermarkets in Albania are probably your best bet to find some vegan supply.
Small shops
As in other Balkans countries, in Albania, there are many small shops that sell a bit of everything.
Some of them sell just snacks, some other slightly bigger sells a small selection of veggie and/or fruits and stuff like pasta, bread, milk and similar.
In most of these types of shops, you will not likely find vegan products.
Some of these small shops sell products from bigger supermarkets so I have been randomly lucky to find vegan products but is quite rare.
Greengrocery
There are a lot of greengroceries.
They sell only fruits and vegetables and often are products from villages, local markets, or even from their own garden (the very small ones). They usually have more tasteful and often cheaper veggies and fruits. Obviously, they are not ALL good, so you need to find your favorite one.
While traveling you will see many people selling fruits and veggies on the road. Very likely, these are products of their own garden, so if you are looking for something natural, local, and km 0, this is it.
Bigger markets
Supermarkets in Albania don't have many vegan products either.
Some of them will randomly offer 1 type of 1 brand of tofu or vegan biscuits but often is not a regular product they offer and it was always a bet to know what I was going to find in each supermarket.
The good thing is that Albania offers lots of Italian or German products and some of them are vegan, so I randomly found vegan biscuits, vegan croissants or apple pie, vegan cereals, and so on. But again, one or two products per supermarket and it might be the next week wasn't there anymore.
In bigger towns and cities, I mostly found vegan products in:
- Conad: Italian supermarkets chain. It has different vegan choices like milk, croissant or apple pie or some other kind of Italian breakfast, cereals of different kinds, tofu, ice cream or frozen burger. The bigger the shop is, the more vegan choice there is.
My main problem with Conad is that is incredibly expensive and is easy to lose track of how much is going to spend. This is obviously relative and subjective but I found it to be expensive as a person used to live in Germany. - Rossman: German drugstore chain that has many eco-friendly products like bamboo toothbrushes or bar shampoo. They also offer a small selection of packaged food.
Here I found: Tofu of two kinds, vegan biscuits, energy balls, vegan bars, vegan milk, vegan cookies, vegan sauces and bread spreads, and similar products.
Bio shop or other alternative shops
Personally, I didn't find many bio or eco-shops in Albania.
In some bigger cities like Tirana and Shköder, I have seen many bio shops for hair and beauty products.
To me, seems that those places were selling beauty eco-products mostly because they are better for the skin. I didn't see anything that relate to a conscious choice.
In Tirana tho, I did quickly spotted a small alternative beauty and food shop. So who knows, maybe looking carefully around there are more. I didn't find any online, nor in designated apps like HappyCow.
Restaurants in Albania
Most of the time eating outside in Albania was hard.
The restaurants I have been to, didn't have any vegan options outside of salad and french fries.
Salads were often only one or two menu choices and both were very poor in regards to the number of ingredients (i.e. green salad + tomatoes).
In all the restaurants there is pasta, salads, potatoes or veggies but most of the time they are mixed with cheese, meat or cooked with butter.
In most of the cities people understand what vegan is, or at least they will tell you they get it and they are open to modifications. I often managed to get a pizza with just tomatoes
Unfortunately, I often got my order with cheese or other diary in it and I had to send it back to change it. This is happened more often then I like to admit.
Also, this happened while being with Albanian who were speaking in Albanian with the waiters so is definitely not a language barrier.
I want to point out I have been in Albania in a low season. It might be that in high season in the tourist area on the coast, the situation is better.
Traditional food
There is some traditional food that is vegan by nature. Is very few and often not so easy to find but there is.
- Stuffed peppers: Baked stuffed peppers with rice. Sooo good! In the very southeast, you can find also done with aubergine. Unfortunately, most of the places I have been that had this item on the menu, they told me they were out of stock that day.
- Wine leaves: Rice rolled in wine leaves. So simple, so good.
- Lakror: Is a kind of pie, traditionally from Korca and the area around it. It can be filled with different veggies and meat. There is one version that is with onion and tomatoes and is vegan. Very tasty and particular.
- Baklava: A layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry. Depending on where you go they could make them with or without butter. In Albania are mostly with butter, ask tho, sometimes you are lucky and find one without.
- Börek: This is a filled filo pastry from all the Middle Easter area with a variety of fillings, such as meat, cheese, spinach, or potatoes. In Albania tho, I mostly found it with meat or cheese and spinach. When I was asking about the type of Börek, they often told the spinach and cheese one was just spinach. 99% of the time was actually spinach and cheese.
Unfrotuantely Börek in Albania are often backed with butter so you will need to ask each time if is backed with butter or not.
It was definitely hard but I manage some times to find some filled with tomatoes and onions, just spinach or just tomatoes.
Tirana
Tirana is the capital and I felt the difference from any other place in Albania. More modern and with more choices.
Still there is no vegan-only restuarant in Tirana.
There are three vegetarian/vegan places (Veggies, Green And Protein, Happy Belly/Eat Smart) and about ten places that offer a decent selection of vegan dishes but they also sell meat and other food.
There are also random places like Morsi which offer a single vegan choice or can make the vegetarian dish, vegan.
Not often but I could find them.
Personally, I was rather disappointed by the vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Tirana, I judge them to be ok-ish, nothing impressive.
My favorites places were: Chakra Jone, Teduaktu, Fabrika.
Sum up:
As I said, Albania was one of the countries where I struggle most to eat as vegan.
Sometimes I ate non-vegan food by mistake or because I had enough of discussing, changing, waiting for my food.
My diet was quite unbalanced and very simple (no fancy superfood, fancy protein or seeds).
Overall It was ok because I always had access to a kitchen and I simply cook lots of fresh vegetables.
I felt a bit sad to not be able to try out the traditional food and I think I miss an important part of the culture.
Anyway, I understood the gist and I never went to a restaurant super hungry.
I was also mentally prepare therefore when I had to ask to change my order without cheese or sausces as said million time, I was just having a laugh.