[ALBSA-Info] New York Times

[Agron Alibali]

The New York Times, April 3, 2001 
April 3, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final 

Section B; Page 1; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk 
The Albanian Connection; 
As Italians Move Up, a New Group Does the Pizza and
Pasta 

By DEXTER FILKINS 


The Famous Famiglia restaurant at Broadway and 50th
Street in Manhattan is like many of hundreds of
pizzerias in the city. A scene from Venice adorns one
wall. Pictures of famous Italian-Americans like Frank
Sinatra and Rocky Marciano hang from another. The menu
offers "Italian specialties" like eggplant parmigiana
and baked ziti. 

The only thing un-Italian about Famous Famiglia is the
famiglia that own it: Tony, Paul, John and Giorgio
Kolaj, Albanians from the former Yugoslavia. Like
hundreds of their compatriots who fled to New York
during the cold war or the Balkan conflict of the
1990's, the Kolajs have quietly prospered by opening
Italian restaurants, cooking Italian food and playing
down their own ethnic origins. 

"We're very true to the Italian recipes, more than the
Italians," said Paul Kolaj, who moved to the United
States in 1970, grew up in the South Bronx and opened
his first pizzeria in 1986. "I'm not sure I like the
idea of advertising the fact that we're Albanian. It's
a touchy situation." 

If the culinary affinity doesn't seem obvious --
Albanian cuisine includes dishes like faszle (bean
stew), not pizza -- the Albanians say they are
capitalizing on experience and geography. Many spent
time in refugee camps in Italy, where they learned the
food and the language, before immigrating to the
United States. During the cold war, many residents of
Albania defied their Communist government by tuning
into Italian television. Before that, Italy under
Mussolini annexed the country of Albania in April
1939, and controlled it until 1945. 

Exact numbers are hard to come by, but some
restaurateurs say ethnic Albanians own or operate more
than 100 Italian restaurants and pizzerias in the
metropolitan region, including all five boroughs,
Westchester County, Connecticut and New Jersey. 

The Kolajs own eight Famous Famiglia restaurants in
New York City, and recently edged out larger Italian
restaurant chains in a bid to open two pizzerias at
Newark International Airport. Paul Vuli owns all or
part of four Italian restaurants in the metropolitan
region, including Fino in Murray Hill, and he is
preparing to open a fifth. Imer Deja and his uncles,
cousins and brothers own nine pizzerias in Manhattan
and Brooklyn. The Patsy's Pizzeria in East Harlem is
now owned by Frank Brija, an Albanian from Kosovo. 

"I've stopped looking for them, there are too many,"
said Ismer Mejku, who runs the Albanian Yellow Pages,
a directory of Albanian-owned businesses in the United
States. Mr. Mejku says he plans to run advertisements
for about 75 Albanian-owned restaurants in New York in
his 2001 edition, the overwhelming majority offering
Italian cuisine. "There are hundreds." 

Many of their owners started out much like Mr. Vuli,
who left Yugoslavia in 1972 and lived in Italy for a
year while waiting to get into the United States. When
he arrived in New York at 18, he spoke Italian but
almost no English, and started washing dishes in a
Brooklyn restaurant for $90 a week. He worked his way
up from there, and opened his first restaurant,
Piccolo Mondo, in 1977. 

"Italy is where it all started," he said, between sips
of bottled water at his table in Fino's. 

But the link to Italy is not the only reason.
Albanians say they are also capitalizing on an
industry that has long depended on freshly arrived
immigrants to thrive. As Italian-Americans have moved
up the economic ladder and out to the suburbs,
Albanians are taking over. 

"The Italians can't do the work anymore, they've
gotten fat in America," said Joe Carnevalla, an
Italian-American whose company supplies groceries to
700 pizzerias in the New York area. "You go into an
Italian restaurant now, you see Albanians. You think
they're Italian. They speak Italian, they look like
us, the food is great." 

They have done much to cultivate such authenticity.
While many of the restaurant owners describe
themselves as fiercely patriotic, they set aside their
ethnic pride when it comes to running their
businesses. 

Imer Deja's family bought nine Italian restaurants in
New York City and didn't change any of the names. Imer
owns Mike's Pizza in Brooklyn; his brother, Zija, owns
Charlie's Pizza in Brooklyn; Cousin Bill owns La
Belleza Pizza in Manhattan. "If you change the name,
you could lose customers," Imer Deja said. 

When Gjergj Dedvukaj, an Albanian from Yugoslavia,
bought Giovanni's in the Bronx, he decided against
changing cuisines. "Customers don't know Albanian
food," he said. Some of his customers think he is
Italian, and he does little to dissuade them. "They
think I'm Giovanni." 

The Kolajs, the owners of the Famous Famiglia
pizzerias, have made the most of their 14-month stay
in a camp in Italy, where their father died and the
youngest brother, Giorgio, was born. In a company
brochure, the Kolajs don't mention their Albanian
roots, but they do say that the family "made the
pilgrimage from Italy to America." In their new line
of Italian food products, which include spaghetti,
marinara sauce and ziti, their mother, Roze Kolaj, is
featured on the logo as Mamma Rosa, holding a bunch of
tomatoes. 

At the same time, the Kolaj brothers have donated
thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to
Albanians dislocated in the Balkans. "We've never
forgotten our homeland," Mr. Kolaj said. 

Tony and Tina's Pizzeria in the Bronx is one of the
few establishments that show their ethnic roots. The
mostly Albanian crew tosses pizza dough beneath flags
and posters celebrating the struggle of their brethren
in Kosovo. The pizzeria also sells burek, an Albanian
meat pie. 

The influx of Albanians into the pizza parlors and
restaurants has sparked some skepticism and, perhaps,
resentment. Until about a year ago, Sette Colli
Ristorante in Brooklyn was owned by an Albanian, who
had started the restaurant years before. Then a person
of Italian descent bought it from the Albanian.
Salvatore Adamita, the new owner, said he purchased
Sette Colli last year when people in the neighborhood
discovered that the former owner was not Italian. 

"We brought it back to the way it's suposed to be,"
Mr. Adamita said. "The food is much better. The
customers notice." Mr. Adamita said it was only
natural that Italians would know better about Italian
food. "We originated it," he said. "We know how to do
it." 

Mr. Adamita seems to be in the minority. For the most
part, Italian-American restaurateurs say they don't
mind the competition, or the throngs of Albanians
eager to buy their establishments. Often, the Albanian
buyers have worked in their restaurants for several
years. 

"I appreciate the Italian guy, I learned from him,"
said Atli Tocci, an Albanian who bought Portobello
Pizzeria Restaurant in Brooklyn from its
Italian-American owner five months ago. "I worked here
10 years. I learned how to make good pizza. One day he
say to me: You want to buy it? I say, why not?" 

Like the Italians before them, the Albanians are using
pizzerias to segue into the middle and higher ends of
the restaurant business. Bruno Ristorante, a Midtown
restaurant specializing in Northern Italian cuisine,
was described as "elegant" and "excellent" in the 2001
Zagat Survey. Its owner, Bruno Selimaj, came to the
United States from Yugoslavia in 1971 and began his
career by washing dishes in an Italian restaurant in
Midtown. 

In 1999, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani led Gov.
George W. Bush through the old Italian-American
enclave of Belmont in the Bronx, he took him to
Giovanni's, owned by Mr. Dedvukaj, an Albanian from
Yugoslavia. 

The mayor, Italian by descent, has declared his
approval. "The Albanians do a wonderful job of
operating Italian restaurants and cooking Italian
food." 

But Joe Carnevalla, the food supplier, doesn't think
it will last forever. 

"Just wait," Mr. Carnevalla said. "Ten years from now,
the Albanians won't want to work, and some other group
will come in and do just what they did." 
  

http://www.nytimes.com 

GRAPHIC: Photos: At Tony and Tina's Pizzeria in the
Bronx, Simon Kajtazi, a pizza maker, played a cifteli,
an Albanian stringed instrument. (Angel Franco/The New
York Times)(pg. B1); Bruno Selimaj, the owner of Bruno
Ristorante, specializing in Northern Italian cuisine,
came to the United States from Yugoslavia in 1971.
(Nancy Siesel/The New York Times)(pg. B8) 


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