I’M JESS CREATOR OF TAVOLI
A home for my Albanian & Mediterranean recipes and the adventures that inspired them.
I hope these will bring more people back into the kitchen and around their tables to enjoy the beautiful flavours of Albania and The Mediterranean; and that these meals will help create lasting memories for you, as they have done for me.
IT ALL STARTED WHEN I MOVED TO LONDON
I moved to London from Edinburgh in 2017 and became fascinated by my new neighbourhood’s street food scene, Mediterranean supermarkets and cafes.
I already loved cooking and baking but something just clicked when I started creating Mediterranean inspired dishes. It felt so natural, even though many of the ingredients I was using were new to me.
& fell in love
Call it fate but in 2018 when I met my Albanian husband Çesk, all of the cooking and eating I had done in the previous year came together to form some of the most special moments in our relationship.
It’s hard to express your feelings without a shared language so I showed mine in the best way I knew how; through cooking. With Çesk being far from his family, I started researching and experimenting with Albanian dishes to help him feel more at home (and, you’ve probably guessed it, of course I wanted to impress him too).
I quickly realised that many of the dishes and ingredients I had been exploring in the past year featured in Albanian cuisine and all the time spent in Mediterranean markets and perfecting my baklava really started to feel like fate!
Some years on and several trips to Albania and beyond later, creating and cooking Albanian and Mediterranean dishes has become my true passion and I’m so excited to share these recipes with you through Tavoli!
FROM OUR TABLE TO YOURS
Fancy trying some of the recipes we’re serving up at our table? Check out our delicious collection of Albanian and Mediterranean recipes.