Rruga 2 Dhjetori 5 · Himarë, Albania
Piazza
A restaurant and pizzeria on the seafront promenade at Himarë, with the awning open to the water and a wood oven behind it. Coffee from eight in the morning; the doors close at midnight.
Every day, 08:00–00:00
Why it is in quotation marks
An Italian word on an Albanian coast, and the venue has never claimed anything by it. No founding year is published, no owner is named, and there is no square here — the street is Rruga 2 Dhjetori, in Spile, and the front of the building faces the beach.
What the house does instead is put the word in quotes. The sign hanging over the terrace, the standing board on the deck and the carved plaque on the wall all read the same way; only the timber board inside the room drops them. That punctuation is the answer, and it is the shape these pages are set in.
Four things it says it does
Kafe e freskët & mëngjese
Coffee, and then breakfast
The doors open at eight. Coffee first, and breakfast after it, at a table set on the deck with the pines and the water in front of you.
It is the earliest thing this place does, and the house names it first among the four.
Pica të punuara me dorë
Pizza made by hand
Pizza worked by hand, baked in a wood oven. Both of those are the house's own words for it.
The logs burn to one side and the bases go straight onto the bare stone, no tray under them.
Fruta deti të freskëta
Fresh pasta, and seafood
Fresh pasta and fresh seafood, listed together on the house's own card of what it does.
Fish can come whole to the table, on a long platter with potatoes and carrots under it.
Pjata mesdhetare & kokteje
Mediterranean plates, and cocktails after
Mediterranean plates and original cocktails, and the doors stay open until midnight.
Italian inspiration with Mediterranean freshness — the venue's own description of what it cooks.
Plates change with what comes in, so the card at the table is the one that counts. piazzahimare.com is the house’s own site.
A fire against the back wall
Pizza worked by hand, and a wood oven with the logs burning to one side. Bases go onto bare stone, with no tray under them. Pizza is not rare on this front — there are other kitchens in Himarë making it within a few doors of here.
Open on the side that matters
Stone paving and timber decking under a retractable awning, pines standing between the tables and the water, and the room behind folding open onto it.
On the promenade, facing the beach
Rruga 2 Dhjetori 5, in Spile — the seafront quarter of Himarë, with the sand directly in front of the terrace. It stands in a row of kitchens that runs the length of the front.