Himarë · Vlorë County · Albania
The table
Modern Mediterranean cuisine unified with the traditional local food culture. What follows is one table, photographed as it stood — no more and no less than that.
Kataifi in syrup, on the marble.
- Kataifi
- Three rolls of shredded pastry, baked to a deep gold and sitting in their own syrup, on a plain white plate.
- Chimara
- A bottle of the lager of that name, its label blue and gold under a gold lion, standing behind the plate, and a cut-glass tumbler of it poured out.
- The setting
- Marble under a bamboo slat mat, one fork, a napkin rolled and tied with a green thread, and a heavy square glass ashtray at the back of the table.
- The mark
- The napkin holder carries a pointed oval with the first letters of the name drawn inside it — a leaf, and the house mark.
A Greek kitchen, a hundred and twenty-eight metres up.
Most of the tables are outside, under cane and vine, with the slope and the water in front of them. This one is marble, and this is what it carried.