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Malta Restaurant Stars
Profiles of Malta’s best nine restaurants...
Although most restaurants in Malta are still descendants of Italian cuisine, the restaurant scene has matured over the past decade. Up-market restaurants have taken Maltese cuisine out of its home insularity to the professional kitchen, and chefs are drawing culinary bridges with the rest of the Mediterranean. The result is creative experimentation - the nine restaurants featured below are among the best. Expect to pay from Lm10 to Lm25 for a three-course meal for one minus wine.The culture of wine has also come of age now that Meridiana are brewing full-bodied up-market wines. All the restaurants featured below have a wide selection of wines from Malta, the Old and New Worlds.
Rubino
Leading the market in Maltese cuisine, Rubino’s dishes are creative, liberal with herbs and spices, and pierced with Mediterranean tastes. Julain Sammut, the proprietor, unearths forgotten Maltese dishes and changes items on the menu every day in cycles of seasonal availability. He grows herbs in his back garden. He says: “We have a wonderful cuisine and I was embarrassed that visitors could not find Maltese food.”
Sammut had found his niche, and opened three years ago. Now patronised by the Valletta business elite for lunch, Rubino has ignited – along with a few others – Valletta’s restaurant scene. Rubino is set in a converted early twentieth century confectionery. White tablecloths contrast with black chairs and tables, old photographs and mementoes of Valletta streetscapes punctuate the whitewashed walls, and classical music flutters in the background. As you step in, shelves brimming with jars of pickled delicacies such as capers, olives, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes set the tone of the cuisine.
Day’s dishes are scribbled on a blackboard. The antipasto platter is an all-time favourite starter. Pasta dishes mix unlikely ingredients, such as the fettuccini with lamb hearts, livers, and kidneys; spaghetti with rabbit liver in sherry vinegar and rosemary; fettuccini with snails and their stock in saffron, garlic, onion, parsley and white wine. Ghagin Griek (Greek Pasta) is a recurrent dish made of pasta beads with minced pork, white wine, bay leaf and Parmesan. For main courses, there is a staple of boiled meats – gammon, veal shanks, beef – served with stewed apple mustard and side dishes of roast potatoes and vegetables. Meats are balanced with stuffed vegetables, such as marrows, peppers and aubergines. Two recurrent sought-after dishes are the roasted lamb and the ox-tongue with a piquant caper-based sauce. For dessert, Rubino is renowned for making the best Cassatta Siciliana, a Sicilian cake layered with sweet ricotta, sponge cake, black chocolate chips, candied fruits and marzipan.
XII Restaurant
Karl Mallia, the 27-year-old patron chef, sharpened his culinary finesse when he cooked at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron to a clientele of sophisticated travellers. He recounts, “We were an international team of cooks, English, Vietnamese, French, Japanese and others, so I picked up many influences from my colleagues.” That’s reflected in the menu that incorporates tastes and cooking patterns from France to Vietnam.
XII is one of the few quality places among tens of bland pizza-pasta-steak houses in the nightlife district of St Julians. This small place integrates elements of designer cafes in London on a rustic palette of bare, warm limestone walls, complemented by beige and white tablecloths, soft lighting, close-up compositions of colourful boats and world music. It’s trendy yet informal.
Beside the mixed antipasti for starters, made of various local delicacies and smoked meats, there are hearty pasta starters. I particularly liked the Fusilli alla Maltese – with spicy Maltese sausage, spinach, chilli and tomatoes. The lamb shank is braised and baked in red wine, onions, garlic and bay leaf. The Fish of the Day is adventurous - stuffed with bread, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, marjoram and olive oil. The Duck Karl’s Style is made by marinating the duck in lemon grass and ginger oil, and served with teriyaki and orange-scented honey sauce; it had an exquisite oriental whiff, a spicy hint lifting the taste.
Mallia has an eye for detail honed in Malta’s culinary team. He touches off the plate with curvaceous drizzles of oil tinged with rusty colours. “Brulee is my signature,” he says, and he changes its taste everyday by adding flavours such as rosewater.
Grabiel
As you step into Grabiel, you are greeted by the aroma of cooking fish and by a tray of fish that illustrates the day’s menu; today there’s red mullet, grouper, silver bream, sea bass, red snapper, octopus, calamari, king prawns, clams and oysters. Virtually all dishes are based on seafood; Grabiel is reputed as Malta’s leading fish restaurant, situated in the south amid an arid restaurant scene. The three brothers who run Grabiel found a template for success by delivering the fish dishes they grew up with; their mother weaned them on seafood leftovers their fisherman uncle netted. “I’ve had so much fish in my life,” say Carmel Bianco, the manager, “that I hardly eat seafood these days.”
Greeting customers at their table, Bianco is a natural entertainer. His gestures are elaborate and his voice has a singsong twang that draws you in his fold. He chats a little, then explains the day’s dishes, and guides you to choose with experienced intuition.
Fish is cooked plainly to bring out its taste to the fore. Depending on the species, fishes for main courses can be baked, fried, grilled, steamed, or baked in salt, but all cooked perfectly flaky and glistening. The spaghetti with clams drizzled with fish stock and pesto, my starter, retained the clam hegemony of flavour. For main course I opted for a staple dish, the Fritto Mesto (Fruit of the Sea). It’s seafood feast of boiled octopus and squid drizzled with dressing of garlic and olive oil, deep fried prawns, baby calamari, baby cuttlefish and calamari rings, king prawns in olive oil, garlic and brandy, and clams steamed in wine, garlic and parsley.
Christopher’s
“Taste, taste, taste,” owner and chef Christopher Farrugia, 38, describes the experience of eating at his place with its classical French cuisine. Christopher’s caters for the top-end of the market, a small, cosy place where you get personal attention. The soft, pastel décor is set on browns, yellows, blues, white tablecloths and charming landscape paintings. Everything has a classic touch, from the geometric designs on the plates to the blue-padded oak chairs. The silver cutlery is polished to sheen; you can set your hair in the reflection of the butter pot.
The menu is changed several times a year. “The same ingredients throughout a season develop different textures and tastes,” explains Farrugia. Every day Farrugia concocts two or three fish dishes inspired by daily catches. The menu is balanced by fish and meat dishes, including sea scallops, Scotch salmon, ravioli of smoked duck and wild mushrooms, and meats such as roast pheasant, Angus beef, Welsh lamb, and wild boar.
I started with a Mescarpone and Hazelnut Soufflé with Grilled Asparagus, a fluffy soufflé that set the stage for the main course by leaving the palette uncluttered with flavours. For main course I had Fillets of Red Mullet with a Prawn Pulpetta and Tomato Couli. The red mullet, grilled in olive oil and lemon juice, and the sautéed pulpetta (fishball) of mullet, prawns and breadcrumbs were arranged on a rack of caramelised carrot and roast potato cubes fried in duck fat and bacon, and served on a base of tomato and chicken stock sauce. Dessert was built on a pear theme: pear sorbet, pear ice-cream, pear lolly, pear tart, pear and raison brulee, and poached pear glazed with caramelised sugar.
The subtle tastes matured on my palette like a good wine that stays with you long after you have drunk your glass clean. Presentation was artistic - my main course had the round compositional elements of a cartwheel with colours set on shades of orange and the six dessert items were arranged on an egg-shaped plate like a still life painting.
Surprisingly, Farrugia is largely self-taught. In the early eighties he dropped out of catering school because he found the course lacking in creativity. “Clients come here with high expectations that we have to live up to,” Farrugia points out. They do: this is the kind of place you would take a business partner you want to impress.
The Arches
Hailing from a family of bakers, Joseph Vella took a course in Wines & Spirits when he was 21, and this is reflected in what is probably the most extensive wine list in Malta. “We definitely have the best quality wines,” says Vella, the proprietor.
Vella originally converted The Arches from an inn in 1970, then sold the restaurant in 1980 to get into real estate. Four years later he re-bought The Arches because, “I realised that running a restaurant is what I can do well.” This time he rebuilt the restaurant to a grand theme. The setting is Classical, columns framing doors, mahogany tables dressed by pink tablecloths, gold-gilded lamps with their halo of warm light, Classical music, and a formal service to match.
The extensive menu is adventurous French cuisine; it features several vegetarian dishes and three specialities that change every week. You can choose from starters such as Roast Fennel and Aubergine on Butter Bean Mash and Black Olives and Bell Pepper Sauce, Tagliatelle with Leeks and Prawns enriched with Cream. Main courses include Steamed Paupiette of Sole with Smoked Salmon and Scallops on Lobster Sauce, and Grilled Veal Chop with Red Pepper Pesto accompanied with Sautéed Spinach and Feta Cheese on Sherry and Veal Glaze.
I had the Milo-Melo of Fish, slices of smoked salmon and john dory with caviar butter and lemon juice, but I found it a bit unimaginative. For main course I had Roast Guinea Fowl with Sesame Seeds and Vegetable Strips; it consisted of a guinea fowl breast and vegetables strips rolled in filo pastry and baked golden brown, plus a fowl’s leg coated in sesame seeds and roasted. Admittedly, the side dishes were disappointing – pleats of deep fried onion intruding the taste, flatly blanched vegetables, mashed and baked potato – but the dish proper was excellent: tender meat and contrasting tastes that released deep flavours.
Giuseppi’s
Michael Diacono, the 34-year-old patron chef and owner, opened Giuseppi’s fourteen years ago to flog his passion for good food. As self-taught starter he has done well – after Christopher’s and Rubino, Giuseppi’s is the third best restaurant featured here.
He changes the menu every three weeks, but retains two starters that are favourite requests – Chestnut Mushrooms prepared in Butter with Garlic, Basil, Tomatoes and Parsley, and Deep Fried Goat’s Cheese served with Salad Leaves as Garnish and a Tomato and Garlic Concasser. A daily special is the Fresh Fish of the Day. Diacono likes to give popular recipes a twist, such as adding bitter chocolate to the traditional rabbit dish.
I started with Linguine with Sea Urchins; olive oil, garlic, chilli, anchovies, parsley, sea urchins and fish stock spiced by fennel and saffron. Its subtle taste, highlighted by the sea urchins, slipped down as easily as oysters. The quail proved the best I have sampled in Malta; it’s deboned and stuffed with mushroom duxelle and pate de foie, fried with onions and garlic, then simmered in red wine, brandy, juniper berries and bay leaf. Something I noted gladly in Giuseppi’s is the selection of five side dishes, a choice most other places skimp on.
Giuseppi’s is full of Old World charm, floored with stone slabs and the walls painted in brush-strokes of brown-red, dull blue and faded yellow. Watercolour paintings scatter along the walls, and there is a wine rack and antique food-processing paraphernalia. Service is informal; Denise Mellish, the manager, draws you in her trusted confidence. Diacono explains: “I want clients to have comfortable privacy. I don’t like a waiter topping my wine or changing my ashtray every five minutes.”
Ta Frenc
Situated at the bowl of a valley and surrounded by hills, Ta Frenc is set in a delicately restored farmhouse. Soft lighting, potted plants and tablecloths with Baroque designs blend with the arches that rib the ceiling and the auburn of the bare stone walls. In summers, seating is in a courtyard nestling amid towering eucalyptus, aleppo pines and bougainvillaea. Under a mantle of whispering stars, it makes for romantic dinners.
The menu is extensive, and has five types of lobster dishes, and a selection of soups including the chunky Fish Soup Ta Frenc Style. There are several vegetarian dishes that include Eggplant with Tomatoes and Garlic and Parmesan, Ricotta with Spinach Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce, and Stuffed Pancake with Fish Cover with Lobster Sauce. Heavy in creams and cheeses, there is hardly anything on the menu that could be described as plain and simple.
I particularly enjoyed my starter, seafood pieces of grouper, dentici, sea bream, amberjack, prawns and mussels simmered in cream, stuffed in an avocado, drizzled with shellfish sauce, sprinkled with cheeses and baked. One of their most requested dishes is the lamb fillet fried with onion and tarragon, and simmered in wine and stock. Another is lobster sautéed in mushrooms and onions, plus mustard, brandy, cream, cheeses, then baked. I found the blanched vegetables and baked potato ball for accompaniments uninspiring, and my fish slightly undercooked, but the Trifle Maltese, for dessert, was a well-made local speciality.
This is Gozo’s most upmarket restaurant. Mario Schembri, head chef and manager, employs only qualified waiters, but his insistence on impeccable service makes the waiters stiffly awkward.
Il-Kartell
Phillip Spiteri, the 35-year-old proprietor, puts an accent on the freshest ingredients, especially fish, which is what Il-Kartell is renowned for. Situated on the waterfront of the resort and fishing bay of Marsalforn, Gozo, Il-Kartell is well-poised to find the freshest fish catches landed across the road. Spiteri’s philosophy is an informal, hands-on approach, genuine food and friendly service without ceremony.
Seating is outdoors on the promenade on the water’s edge, overlooking the bay with its braids of lights shimmering across the water. There is soft music, the swell rising and falling with a timeless quality, and the hunched waves lapping the shore with whispering splashes.
As a pre-starter I sampled tuna pieces pickled in olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, chilli and seasoning. For a starter, the light Aljotta (local fish soup) set the scene for the main course. It’s made by frying onion, garlic, mint and marjoram, touch of tomato paste and simmered in the fish stock for over an hour. For a main course, I had an amberjack, a delicate fish that is grilled whole on a bed of salt to make the skin crispy, served with salad and sauté potatoes and an optional dressing. It was plain, good, and flaky. The dessert, Pancake Kartell Style, is a staple pancake stuffed with patisserie cream and sugar, browned underneath the salamander and flame burned with Grand Mariner, then given a twist by scoops of specially made cinnamon ice-cream.
Oleander
If Rubino is the professional, trend-setting place for Maltese cuisine, Oleander is its older brother, offering the best of Gozitan cuisine cooked traditionally. When it launched with that concept seventeen years ago, it succeeded beyond expectations. Everything about Oleander reinforces the local angle – it’s set in a converted townhouse in the church square and showcases a large painting of the town’s landmarks as the centrepiece of its décor.
With a limited menu of a dozen dishes, this is the kind of place to visit occasionally. I started with the hearty Local Ravioli, the pastry made from flour, water and eggs, and the purse-sized ravioli stuffed with goats’ cheese, beaten eggs, olive oil and seasoning, served with a tomato and basil sauce. For main course I had another local speciality, Spaghetti with Rabbit Sauce, the chopped rabbit meat fried with onions, then simmered in tomatoes and mixed herbs and peas.
Seating is outdoors in the church square, where Oleander has a postcard-perfect backdrop: the towering Baroque church dominating the large square ringed by weathered townhouses and gnarled oleander trees from which Oleander inherits its name. You feel transported to another, forgotten world. In the hole in the wall bars that remember British colonial rule with unconscionable nostalgia - the Diamond Jubilee Bar and the Olympic Bar – pensioners sit outdoors cracking peanuts and sipping wine in carefree timelessness.
© Victor Paul Borg
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