Fundim Gjepali

Coming Up

Today, Fundim Gjepali is Executive Chef of Antico Arco and Executive Chef of Restaurant Butique Padam. The two appointments show a career that has moved across borders without loosening its center. Rome and Tirana are different rooms, but the work attached to his name stays legible: keep service moving, keep the kitchen calibrated, and keep the plate aligned with a clear culinary identity.

Where They Are Now

At Antico Arco, the title is straightforward: Executive Chef. In Tirana, he also serves as Executive Chef at Padam Boutique Hotel & Restaurant. That pairing defines the scope of his current work — two restaurants, two cities, one standard. The quoted line, “Our dream has always been to experience a place that is like a happy island for us who work there and for those who come to visit us,” frames hospitality in practical terms: a dining room should work for the brigade and for the guest, with the kitchen holding the temperature of the whole place. That perspective matches a chef whose value sits in continuity. Fundim Gjepali’s work is not presented as trend-chasing, but as an insistence on food that carries substance and a room that carries purpose. The connection between Antico Arco and Padam Boutique Hotel & Restaurant is less about contrast than about standard: different settings, same attention to service, rhythm, and the architecture of a meal.

In Their Words “It makes more sense to put solid gastronomic culture on the table than trends, which pass by definition.” The line is direct, and it matches the way Fundim Gjepali’s roles read on paper. The table, in this view, is where technique and context matter more than novelty. At Antico Arco and Padam Boutique Hotel & Restaurant, that means making decisions that last longer than a season and keeping the work anchored in something recognizably built.