Finding It
On the seafront promenade in Himarë, where the paving is wide enough for the tables to stand out on it. It is a frontage rather than a doorway: an open room under a white pergola with tall letters over it.
Himarë · Vlorë County · Albania
What to look for
Four white capitals, GUMA, standing free on a rail above the front, and they are the largest thing on it. A long printed panel of dishes runs the fascia beside them. Below: a white pergola, white cross-back chairs on the paving, and a wooden A-board with the name chalked across the top of it.
Arrive by the name rather than by a pin. This stretch of seafront is dense — dozens of premises stand within a hundred metres of one another, several within a few paces — and the letters over the front are the surest thing to walk towards.
On the other side of the promenade is Spile, the town beach, and then the Ionian. What the wall inside names — tradicional grill food — is what the rest of this coast cooks too.
The address
Guma RestorantHimarë 9425
Vlorë County
Albania
No street name and no house number is posted on the frontage; the frontage is the address.
Questions
- Where exactly is Guma Restorant?
- On the seafront promenade in Himarë. The front is open to the pavement under a white pergola, with white cross-back chairs set out on the paving and GUMA in tall white letters above them.
- Is there a Guma sign to look for?
- Several. Tall white letters spelling GUMA stand above the open front, with a long printed panel of dishes running the fascia beside them. A wooden A-frame board with the name chalked across the top stands on the pavement, and out of season a white menu board on a post stands out at the front.
- What kind of kitchen is it?
- The room says so itself: GUMA, and beneath it TRADICIONAL GRILL FOOD, mounted on the dining-room wall and repeated under the name on the standing menu board outside. The plates that come out are grill plates. Beyond those two boards the house makes no other claim about its kitchen, and neither does this site.
- Can I sit outside?
- Yes. Tables stand on the pavement under the pergola, and the front of the room folds fully open onto them, so the inside and the terrace are one space in season.
- What is in front of the room?
- Its own terrace under a white pergola, and beyond that the promenade, with the town beach across it.
- Is it a dining room or a counter?
- A dining room. Navy banquettes and pale spindle-back chairs stand under a battened ceiling and brass fittings, with more tables out on the pavement under the pergola.