‘Artist’ guarantees three key elements of eating out: no smoking, healthy bio food and high quality of service
By Rudina Hoxha
Who thinks that ‘transferring’ a magnificent small part of forest in the center of the capital is just like crying for the moon is wrong now. Fresh air, sun rays, flowers, trees as well as plants and fruits just freshly cut, cooked and squeezed in the finest way possible can be found in this forest called “Artist” Lounge Restaurant, situated on a non-touched yet full of tree street aside of the Lyceum School in Tirana.
The buzzword of this restaurant is ‘art’ which is the root word of “Artist.” This means that any kind of food or drinks prepared here as well as the interior setting is driven by art as well as nature fevers.
The person behind this ‘creation’ is the 37-year old, Klodian (Nektar) Kume. If we compare this restaurant with an exhibition, he is the painter and the curator at the same time. Talkative in a nice way but very modest at the same time, Kume confesses that “Artist”, founded in November 2007, is his ‘baby” He takes care about it with the same passion as for a baby to grow fine and well.
“Artist” guarantees three key elements of eating out: no smoking, healthy bio food and high quality of service and respect for anyone. Kume is obsessed with three of them to the point of bargaining with none of them.
If anti-smoking law is not yet thoroughly and strictly respected in Albania, “Artist” haggles not a single case. It is very recent the case of a very well-respected foreign businessman in Albania who liked so much to celebrate his birthday at “Artist.” He asked for Kume’s permission, so his guests could smoke during the celebrations. The restaurant owner preferred to lose money rather than to allow people smoke inside this place. Though at the moment, the foreign businessman was somewhat angry, he appreciated so much the fact that the law was respected.
“I must admit, I have suffered clientele loss at the start of the anti-smoking principle but at the end, the clients, 60 % of which are foreigners, supported my anti-smoking as well as my entire management restaurant philosophy,” Kume said.
The guy, who can be considered a Jack of all trades, takes pride in the restaurant menu comprising various dishes and some 45 kinds of desserts, all bio. “I am a fan of bio food because I believe that’s the future of food,” he said. He started working since when young and records a long experience in the food industry and tourism in the neighboring countries. “I learned so much on the way. The passion to create is prevailing even on my cuisine. We use cooking methods that respect bio food and not food processing,” he says.
Through its menu, “Artist” promotes the philosophy of what does it mean to eat healthy. Various vitamin juices, bio desserts and all kinds of fresh vegetables are within the clients ‘reach. The taste is enriched with a perfect service and an atmosphere where clientele is used to feel comfortable even in a small place as artist is. When asked why not moving to a more spacious place, Kume answers easily: “I like it here, I like as small as it is. A more spacious place won’t provide the same style and care”. He confesses that it is not easy to find and train staff. He managed to attain what he wanted in this respect after some years of hard efforts while he still keeps an eye in everything. Otherwise you can not satisfy all the customers. He prefers small and nice rather than big and less quality.
When he returned home after many years abroad, Kume was astonished by the mushrooming highly-invested restaurants in Albania. What he soon realized was that there is a huge lack of quality and this is what he guarantees.
