Belul Mustafi

Pristina | Date: January 17, 2019 | Duration: 33 minutes

The architect said, ‘This will be a restaurant.’ Mahmut said, ‘This will be a pastry shop.’ Because he said, ‘I want this, I want that’ ‘But I’ve designed a restaurant, you’re saying a pastry shop.’ He [Mahmut] said, ‘I’m saying a pastry shop, you’re saying a restaurant.’ Do you understand? [Addresses the interviewer] And that’s what they decided, how they decided. He said, ‘Under one condition, I’ll do it my way, the interior also.’ And that interior, this interior hasn’t changed since ‘78. […] My father accepted, ‘I’ll do it the way you want it, but it will be a pastry shop.’ And Elida was opened on November 19, 1978. […] The history of the name is, as I mentioned before, my father was friends with Mahmut Bakallu until his last gasp, and he is the main reason why we have Elida. Mahmut Bakalli’s daughter is called Elida, so we didn’t know how else to reward him for all his help, and my father said, ‘We will name the pastry shop Elida.’ For him that was an extraordinary gift, a priceless gift…


Kaltrina Krasniqi(Interviewer), Aurela Kadriu(Interviewer)

In 2019, we sat with Belul Mustafi, the current owner of Elida pastry shop. His father Nexhat opened Elida in 1978. Forty-three years later, Elida, with its well preserved interior, Bauhaus-style seats accompanied by a schaumpide, takes us back in time.