The Detari Fish Market has been open for several years on the outskirts of Prishtina near the US Embassy. Now the well-known pescatarian purveyors have started cooking up some of the delightful seafood they sell.
We were given bread and fish pate to enjoy alongside our mix salad, a healthy portion of a tasty but unremarkable serving of greens.
For the main course, we had a hard time deciding from the rich menu of seafood pastas and rizottos like Spaghetti with Frutti di Mare, or choices between the usual fish available in this region: John Dory, Orada, Sea Bass and Sea Bream.
My dining partner and I settled on sharing the “Mix Fantasia” platter for two. We were served a plate teeming with calamari, a small portion of grilled salmon, lightly charred shrimp, and a whole sea bass (levrek). The calamari were some of the most tender I have ever eaten, lightly charred with a smoky grilled aftertaste, just like the shrimp. I tend to avoid ordering salmon around these parts as it is not native to the region, but the portion we had was cooked simply to let the taste — and the feel of luxury — shine. The sea bass was ever so tender and light. We garnished it only with a lemon, but perhaps it would have been nice to have a sauce or some additional flavors.
A crisp, cold bottle of Therande white wine was a perfect complement to our meal.
Despite a long day’s work, the portion was so generous that we could not finish everything.
The food was elegant and understated from start to finish, but I can’t say the same about the ambience. It would be too much to expect that on a rainy night along a main road in Kosovo I would be summoned to the Adriatic coast or even to a riparian village in Albania, but the hard, bright LED lighting and the barren white furniture made the place seem a bit sterile, despite even the big families with children enjoying their meals alongside us. The fun, fish-themed wallpaper brought a smile to my face, but the combined decor seemed unsure of whether it wants to evoke the air of a casual family dining spot or lay down an elegant, upscale vibe that the food deserves.
But the ambience is secondary because while there was food on the table, I wasn’t distracted by any aesthetic qualms. I came, and will return, because of the food, which did not disappoint.
Moreover, the service was perfect — our waiter never missed a beat but was not cloying or over-attentive.
I will be very keen to return to try out more of the menu: the restaurant offers sea urchins (‘Iriq Deti’) and date shell mussels, a prized mollusk delicacy that are now endangered in the Adriatic Sea. Harvested them is banned along the whole Adriatic coast, except the small strip of coast that belongs to Bosnia, so next time I will inquire about their sourcing.
The meal for two, including a 7 euro bottle of wine, cost 31 Euros without tip.
22 May 2014 - 14:59
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