Meet the Albanian sweets queen behind Phoenix's new late-night cafe
Part bakery, part pizzeria, part European portal — this is the creation of a travel-obsessed mother who grew up with Italian influences in Albania and fell in love with the Arizona desert.
Dolce Italia by MEKK, an Albanian-owned fusion restaurant, opened in downtown Phoenix in May 2025. The duo, Meti and Elvira Pellumbi, run the business with ambitious help from their children Klivio, 13, and Keit, 12, during the summer.
Pull the glass door open, and it's hard not to ask yourself if you’re still in Phoenix: European food, London-inspired décor and Mexican desert twists. By day, it’s Parisian café jazz, by night Albanian techno — a mirage of shifting moods.
The menu: Dubai-chocolate pistachio fountains, lemon cakes, eclectic tiramisus, Italian Tres Leches and herb-loaded pasta dishes. It's a cultural collision by plate and playlist.
The Pellumbis are a family who've explored various cuisines throughout Europe, which ultimately inspired a life centered around food.
“This restaurant is ours,” Elvira said. “So, it's what we eat, what we love, what we like, what we are.”
Elvira and Meti were drawn to Arizona during their travels around the United States, ultimately settling in Phoenix in late 2023 without anyone to lean on. Elvira said they’d seen it all, but there was something special about the Arizona mountains that captured her.
“But now I have all Arizona," she said. "Yes, everybody is coming here. ... I want to be the baker (of the city). … And it's this, it's my dream coming, coming through life.”
A business run on family tradition
Elvira's world travels have heavily influenced her approach to cooking.
"I pick and choose my favorite flavors I've found," she said.
By learning a variety of international recipes, she said she learned to invent her own dishes. After years of experimenting, she finally decided to bite the bullet, move to Phoenix and pursue her dream.
Elvira and Meti said their culture's main way of connecting is over family dinners. When Elvira proposed the idea of opening a restaurant, the whole family was on board. The name of the restaurant reflects the family connection, for their initials spell "by M.E.K.K."
“If the family is all together and wants the same thing together, your people, everything is possible,” she said. “We didn't have anybody here. And now, I think I was born here.”
Elvira and Meti renovated and re-designed the empty storefront on North Second and East McKinley streets. Elvira called it a "gray shell" that lacked electricity or water. With no start-up skills themselves, the Pellumbis found local experts to support the process, which took about a year.
(Left to right) Meti, Klivio, 13, Elvira and Keit Pellumbi, 12, embrace in the neon lit signs of their newly opened restaurant after a day cooking in the shop in downtown Phoenix, June 12, 2025.
City of Flowers: A backdrop of Përmet-inspired floral décor
Elvira was born in a small village in Përmet, Albania. It's a place lovingly known as the “City of Flowers,” which is mirrored across the restaurant from place to plate. Hundreds of flowers decorate the space, down to the flowered resin bakery trays.
The entire city of Përmet is a sea of roses, she said. She grew up cooking with her mother’s flower-infused recipes: jam spreads, syrups, rose perfumes and rose-flavored beverages. Her mother’s special rose syrup has even been added to the menu.
When Elvira was 5 years old, she was expected to cook for herself — it was the way her family raised her. She said every woman in the house needed to know how to cook well, even at a young age.
One unique item she learned to make at home is walnut gliko, an Albanian delicacy soaked in fruit preserves and traditionally served to welcome guests.
Elvira also grew up watching Italian television and eating Italian food, building a life-long obsession with the country that is just a short hop from her hometown. The restaurant's name Dolce Italia means "sweet Italy."
However, cooking hasn’t always been Elvira’s job. After studying finance, she and Meti worked for a construction warehouse, importing and distributing utilities from Germany, Turkey and Italy to and from Albania for 20 years. For fun, she took an international culinary course one summer, following her inner chef and propelling her to find her calling.
Dolce Italia by MEKK plaque is shown in a bed of decor flowers on the wall of the cafe, in downtown Phoenix, June 12, 2025.
The invention of Dubai pistachio cream tiramisu
From scratch, Elvira creates pastries by hand, fresh, adding her spin on customary recipes.
“I have invented the Dubai tiramisu. I think very soon it will be a trend, because this Dubai chocolate, it's a trend everywhere, but mixed with tiramisu.”
The recipe incorporates specific flavors and ingredients from her Albanian culture, blending Dubai and French styles.
“One layer of traditional tiramisu, and then it's another layer with what we have in our tradition in Albania," she said. "It's like crunchy noodles with butter, so we toasted them in the oven and then put another layer, a layer with strawberry cream, and then on top I put dark chocolate and pistachio.”
She even named her pasta creation in honor of her home country.
“I have a pasta that I named Tirana, the capital of our country, and it's almost like we do in our home with chopped meat with onion and garlic,” she said. “Everybody here loves our Tirana pasta with lots of herbs.”
Elvira smiled at her son Klivio when describing the classic pasta dish and swore it’s his favorite. Klivio disagreed, saying, "I love everything."
“I don’t have a favorite,” he said. “If today I try the pasta, tomorrow I’ll try a sandwich. The day after tomorrow, a pizza."
And the menu reflects that running list of things to try. Her 13-year-old right-hand man has taken after her creative nature and started cooking behind the scenes in the kitchen.
“He's started to invent things,” Elvira said of her son.
Dolce Italia's sausage and herb pasta, inspired by Elvira's travels around the world and favorite flavors in downtown Phoenix, on June 12, 2025.
Hungry at night?
Elvira touches every plate before it’s served. She said everything is made fresh, even at 2 a.m.
Dolce Italia stays open that late — one of the few downtown Phoenix spots to do so — “only to see people happy,” Elvira said. She doesn't want anyone to end the night hungry.
Klivio said they don’t close the doors until there’s no one left to walk in, usually in the early morning.
He said everyone treats you like family in Albanian restaurants. The family's goal is for Dolce Italia to feel like a relaxing European café where you can visit with friends. They initially designed the space to be a grab-and-go cafe, but she's noticed people prefer to stay for hours.
Despite initial challenges with the transition from across the world, the restaurant has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the community, Elvira said. Friends and family overseas warned her that Americans preferred "neutral flavors" and cautioned against using too many spices, but she trusted her instincts and did things her way.
Costumer Esteban Ortiz helps himself to grab a pastry and places it on his tray at the self serve bakers cabinet at Dolce Italia in downtown Phoenix, June 12, 2025.
And the community has devoured it, she said.
“The most important thing for me is that they love the spices and the herbs. … I use rosemary, I use oregano, I use garlic, I use onion — and everybody loves it.”
The restaurant, which is already garnering significant attention on social media, is gaining traction and positive feedback from customers. It went viral in less than a week.
“We love this place, and we decided to do it, and now we are more than happy," Elvira said. "And the people here, oh my God, the people are amazing, the love they are giving us every day.”
First-timers Esteban Ortiz and his family capped off anniversary night with dessert at Dolce Italia. They discovered the new restaurant on Google Maps and, despite only a few reviews at the time, were intrigued.
(Left to right) Stevie, Cristina, Esteban, and Marissa Ortiz choose from cakes, macarons and cannolis in the glass case as the barista welcomes them in. Esteban and Cristina Ortiz celebrated their anniversary after dinner at Dolce Italia on June 12, 2025.
“There's just a lot of different, unusual but seems like very good combinations for desserts, like the Italian Tres Leches, which is a typical Mexican cake, but they did a different spin on it … an Italian version of it,” Ortiz said. “So that's pretty cool, like, you know, kind of melding different cultures together.”
He pointed out another Mexican influence: bakery trays.
“It's like, help yourself, kind of situation versus, like, everything is behind the glass at other bakeries.”
Ortiz’s daughter, Marrissa, got the limoncello tart, which she described as "light and not overly sweet."
Mother. Immigrant. Baker. Creator.
Elvira's next plan is to welcome her customers to free Albanian pancakes for 8 a.m. breakfast, called petulas (made with eggs, flour, sourdough, cheese and powdered sugar). She said she wants to create an inviting space just for the sake of being hospitable to her customers.
Her husband, Meti, sees his wife's passion and love for the establishment. He says his favorite thing about the restaurant is that "it makes my wife happy."
As an immigrant mother starting her dream business, Elvira said she has hope for other mothers who aspire to do the same.
According to The American Immigration Council, in 2019, immigrant entrepreneurs made up 21.7% of all business owners in the United States, though they are only 13.6% of the population.
Elvira sends a message of faith for family businesses coming from overseas.
“Good things always come," she said. "Believe. Because if you believe in good things, they come."
