Fish Grill: Trout Of This World

Fresh fish combined with a fast food joint in delicious rapture. I was in town for only a week, but it was more than a fling. Trout was our vice.

Perhaps five or six meals, primarily fish sandwiches, multiple times a day. Then I had to leave. But she was gone when I came back. No proper farewell. All that remained was a hole in my piscine-obsessed heart. I’d been mourning and yearning ever since.

Then I saw Fish Grill. It sprouted up not long ago near the OSCE building. The name didn’t tingle my soul in the same way that Peshku’s did with its sparse two syllables that formed the Albanian word for fish.
Maybe it’s better that way. I would never want to replace what Peshku and I had.

The name endeared me in a different way, as did its confused aesthetic. Angled, brushed metal surfaces and a large cubist painting yielded unconventional sophistication — at least by this city’s norms — that clashed with a wall calendar featuring an image of the Clintons outlined in the shape of Kosovo. The menu also intrigued me.
The fish options mostly consisted of a handful of trout preparations starting at 4 euro.

A standard array of Italbanian options — pizzas, pastas and salads with some minor fish presence in one of the soups and spaghetti dishes — dominated the menu.

Naturally, I had to get some trout. It’s the unsung hero of the fish world. Overshadowed by its flashy relative, the salmon, this fresh-water dweller often is the best option in a landlocked place like Kosovo. Fish Grill gets its supply from the domestic trout Mecca, Istog, which isn’t far from Peja.

The most mysterious option was the “scrambled trout”. It seemed that something had been lost in translation. It turned out to be an entire fried trout — or more precisely a culinary celebration with the fish as its focus.
It was plated with potatoes, fresh cabbage, tomatoes, grilled zucchini and carrots.

Accompanying hot flat bread somehow managed to straddle somun and the bread sticks of the Olive Garden, which is the U.S.-based chain of Italian eateries known for their warm, garlicky miniature loaves of bread.

Scored and eviscerated, the trout otherwise remained in its entirety. The skin was slightly crunchy, concealing tender, light flesh I could easily separate from the bones.

For those with little experience in eating whole fish, this trout would be a good choice for beginners.

The flavor was perfect. Rich but lean, the moist trout was also mild without being bland. It had no trace of gaminess — just goodness. I tried the butterflied trout on a subsequent visit.

While it was just as delicious, the kitchen’s splitting of the fish actually made it more difficult to extract the bones.
Fish Grill doesn’t just handle its trout beautifully. The tomato salad, which included olives, lettuce, cucumbers and cheese, was fresh in a bright vinaigrette. The biggest surprise was the 4.50 euro Spaghetti Fish Grill.  
Perfectly executed pasta in a homemade tomato sauce had the welcome addition of trout pieces.

It also paired nicely with a small carafe of Fish Grill’s own white wine, from Istog.

I still miss Peshku dearly. But I take solace in Pristina having a new destination for trout that is delicious and cheap.

Fish Grill
Rr. Fehmi Agani (down the street from the OSCE building)
Open every day, 8 am to 11 pm
044 408 201