mangia patria

Eating at Maltese restaurants has become an expensive endeavour, but the food has become exponentially better. For starters thing the chefs are much more inventive and are using their ingredients in a much more intelligent way than ever before. There might eventually be a few

who think they're the new Ferran Adrià simply because they've stuffed some Ghajnsielem fennel seeds and shiitake mushrooms up a lamb's backside, but on the whole I think new-school Maltese chefs are still in that knowingly naive, pre-celeb stage where still they're having fun playing with new ingredients and unearthing centuries-old Maltese recipes (yes, centuries). And charging us for their fun of course.

Tlaqna...

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TWO AND A HALF LEMON
Vittoriosa Waterfront, Birgu (Vittoriosa)

PLUS

The design. A marvellous and ingenious reworking of traditional Maltese design elements (and by traditional I mean both patterned tiles and the beautifully Dickensian gloom of early seventies government ministries) into one coherently designed package. Congrats to the designers - keep it up and prosit tal-programm.

MINUS

The manager/waiter/chef looks and sounds uncannily like Mark Vella. Since he spent more than fifteen seconds not talking about himself while taking our order, we are forced to conclude it isn't him after all.

CROWD

A bald yacht owner trying to impress his clearly unimpressed and unimpressionable East European girlfriend/escort and a small throng of umbrella-wielding Germans (mit eine tour leader).

COMMENTS

Well worth checking out. Unfortunately I haven't eaten there yet so I don't know if the food is any good but with a Mark Vella lookalike at the helm I'd be surprised if it would('nt) be.

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2-22
Valletta Ring Road (Triq L-Assedju L-Kbir), Valletta

PLUS

Let's start with the design. It's nice. Very nice. Not terribly inventive but very nice. More glass than you can shake a pane at. From Hoxton to Prenzlauer Berg, you've seen these glass behemoths before but this place proves my "stop-calling-modernist-buildings-monstrosities" theory - i.e. 16th century military baroque blends well with Blade Runnerish glass 'n' steel (which shall inevitably date horribly in less than fifteen years). Told ya.

MINUS

The wait! A two and a half hour wait for two courses (ravioli with duck breast and trio of sorbets) is simply unacceptable. The tried and tested routine of haranguing the waiter does, however, produce said ravioli and/or trio of sorbets. I don't know what the reason for such a long wait was (we were the first clients), but if he's playing ping-pong or learning new ballet steps in his kitchen, I want to see the man representing Malta in the next Small Nations Games - and we'll lynch him if he doesn't come back with a handful of gold medals. Bronze is for losers. And fuck San Marino.

CROWD

Local and foreign yuppies, that famous lawyer (forgot her name) and a family from da 'hood who drank like fish (although fish don't drink alcohol so that's not a very good simile...)

COMMENTS

The food was nice. Not orgasmic but it was decently executed. However, the place won't last long unless the chef gets off the valeriana and on amphetamines and the manager ties a mule in the kitchen to kick(start) him into life every few seconds.

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HONDOQ KIOSK
Hondoq Ir-Rummien Bay, Qala (Gozo)

PLUS

A friend of mine waxed lyrical about their home-made tortellini. I'm always suspicious of the word "home-made". If I'd want home cooking I wouldn't go to a restaurant would I? Anyway... they were very good indeed but as far as the claim that they were home-made (presumably by a loving, moustachioed nanna in some derelict farmhouse in Ghasri) goes, I think it's a case of him (like many other Maltese) over-romanticising anything that comes from our sister island. They tasted very familiar, and with good reason too - they're the brand I use.

MINUS

This was the first time I ever saw Hondoq ir-Rummien. I was disappointed. It's an attractive beach but I didn't even bother getting my kit off. The beach is ridiculously overcrowded with obese Maltese kids and flustered Gozitan parents. Anyway, a 10 minute walk through the fields just off the winding stretch which leads to Qala and some Indiana Jonesing over rubble walls will (eventually) lead you to a small secluded beach. What's more, this place is brimming with more sea urchins (rizzi) than your knife can cope with - clean them and cook them in olive oil and parsley for your loved ones or send them (raw and poisoned) to your enemies. There's also a (very visible) sewage duct which brought up horrific images of my girlfriend and I swimming upstream, and eventually drowning, in a sea of shit and our parents wrinkling their noses when they're requested to identify our corpses at the morgue. Fortunately said shit did not materialise. I think.

COMMENTS

Well worth it, lovely tortellini and the burgers look quite tasty too... but it's not like Hondoq Bay is teeming with Michelin-starred restaurants either. Bertagni - hip hip hooray!

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THE KITCHEN

Triq it-Torri, Sliema

PLUS

Hands down, my favourite restaurant in Malta (or on Malta if you wish). The chef studied in Belgium and it shows (well, tastes actually). The composition is balanced and the execution is just right. It's like being back in Brussels, minus the rain in summer and the dogshit on the pavement.

MINUS

The design isn't bad but I don't like it all that much and the name sucks - makes it hard to google...

COMMENTS

Go eat there.

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RUBINO
Triq l-Ifran, Valletta

PLUS

An institution. Still good after all these years. Again - not orgasmic, but still very good.

MINUS

The prices were never cheap but they've become bejewelled-floozy-in-Iceland's-most-expensive-neighbourhood prices now.

COMMENTS

His Cassata Siciliana remains the best on the island. Eat it before you die horribly in a bizarre paddle-boating accident or are squished by the horrific majesty of the Lord's hand of death while camping on Comino. A pox on you I say!

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MAXIMS
Triq il-Kbira San Guzepp, Hamrun

PLUS

I'm from Hamrun, and as such I carry a flick-knife in my back pocket even when I'm showering, tattoo religious imagery on my left arm using rusty safety pins and frequently buy large white porcelain greyhounds with gilded eyes to adorn my living room. I also eat at Maxims. The first one ever. The real one. No MacSeans, McSim's (or even McDonalds) for me. I never quite understood if the multitude of quasi-namesakes are estranged relatives or business partners who decided to go it alone or unauthorised rip-offs. Anyways...

His pizza is still the loveliest greasy slop to ever grace any Hamruniz's palate... and we know good greasy slop when we taste it. The mushrooms seem to have been violently drowned in weeks-old cheap sunflower oil before being cooked which gives them a very particular tanginess. His pizza bil-Wudy is just as good. The taste is nowhere near as good as Lo Zozzone's [Via del Teatro Pace, Roma] white pizza or his pizza al taglio or Maxokk's [Triq San Gakbu, Nadur] ftira miftuha, but since I don't live in the eternal city or the narcoleptic village it'll have to make do.

Watch out for the inordinately sharp knife the guy uses to cut them into neat squares. And don't piss him off. They don't call us Tas-Sikkina for nothing you know...

MINUS

Closes at midnight. Don't worry, the Kazin Nazzjonalista next door opens at 6AM and still serves a pigalicious amount of appetizers (including salami, pecorino, cured ham, pitted olives, etc). Don't worry about politics, even if you're "the enemy". As long as you're not sporting a wig or you're not wearing any oversized belt buckles you'll be fine. After that, cross the road to try Elia (Borg Bonaci)'s ham and cheese toast and one of his lovely sicilian pastries or vanilla roly-poly. Avoid the cross-dressing waiter that turns into a blood-sucking werewolf at 9:30 AM... they don't call us Ta' Werwer for nothing you know...

COMMENTS

Taaaaas-Sikkina maghrufin, ta' Werwer ahna mlaqqmin... Ifthulna t-triq - hadd ma jistgha ghalina... U lil tal-Belt nghidulhom: &"*!&*£^*&%£!!