Interesting. It was a running joke among colleagues in Berlin that every Italian place was actually Albanian, and anecdotally this was indeed the case. Not every place, of course, but a crazy amount.

There are a few reasons I can think of:

There has been a historical connection to Italy for centuries, with tens of thousands (estimates up to ~100,000) that settled there during the Middle Ages through roughly the 1800s, due to the Ottoman invasion (known as Arberesh). Related to this, there was a military alliance between more than one Italian monarch and Albania (technically not a cohesive Albania, but the de-facto leader of the time, and incidentally, national hero, Skanderbeg) due to the Ottoman threat in the 1400s.

During the post-WWII communist regime, Italy was our closest neighbor from the west. Culturally closed off to the rest of the world, their TV and radio signals provided a glimpse of it in a country where there was 1 TV and 1 radio station, both regime-controlled. Conjecture, but it makes sense to me that there would be a gradual identification/comfort level with that culture.

The actual reason though: simply immigration. After the regime fell, beginning with the exodus of 1991, by the mid 90s, there were about a half million Albanians living in Italy, and by the end of the 90s, close to a million. You bet the majority worked blue collar/black market jobs wherever they could find them. That experience translates into a similar field in the US (where they primarily immigrated to, although I'm sure equally applicable to other nations)

I could've just written "immigration" but I thought you might appreciate a more thorough perspective. This topic has come up a ton with friends and colleagues before - you're not the first.

EDIT: Also perhaps because... Italian food is cheap, easy to make and very popular, thus profitable ;)

Appreciate the detailed answer. I wasn't aware of the scale (1M) of the post 1990 immigration. That's pretty impressive given that Albania's current population is 2.8M.