Food and restaurants in Malta

Maltese cuisine

Maltese food is Mediterranean with Sicilian, Arab and British layers: slow-cooked stews, fresh fish, flaky pastries and sheep's-milk cheese.

• Pastizzi: diamond-shaped puff pastries filled with ricotta or mushy peas, sold at pastizzeriji for less than a euro.
• Ftira: a ring-shaped sourdough bread, served as a stuffed sandwich (tuna, olives, capers, tomato) or, in Gozo, as a pizza-like flatbread with potato.
• Fenek (rabbit): stewed in wine and garlic or fried, the national dish, often eaten at a fenkata in a village restaurant.
• Seafood: lampuki (dolphinfish) in autumn, swordfish, octopus stew, aljotta fish soup; Marsaxlokk is the fishing port.
• Timpana (baked macaroni in pastry), bragioli (beef olives), kapunata, bigilla (broad-bean dip), ġbejniet (Gozitan cheeselets), ħobż biż-żejt (bread with tomato, oil and tuna), imqaret (date pastries) and Kinnie (bitter-orange soft drink).

Local products and markets

Gozitan cheese, honey, olive oil, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, Maltese sausage and local wine (Girgentina and Ġellewża grapes). The Marsaxlokk Sunday market, Ta' Qali farmers' market, Is-Suq tal-Belt in Valletta and village bakeries (for ħobż tal-Malti) are the places to shop.

Restaurants and cafés

Valletta, Sliema, St Julian's and the Marsaxlokk and Marsaskala waterfronts have the densest choice, from traditional trattorias to Michelin-starred restaurants; village band clubs serve inexpensive local food. International cuisines (Italian, Indian, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Asian) are everywhere, and vegetarian and vegan options have grown with the international population.

Food traditions

Fenkata evenings, rabbit on L-Imnarja, kwareżimal biscuits in Lent, figolli at Easter, qagħaq tal-għasel (honey rings) at Christmas, and the festa food stalls with nougat (qubbajt).

Directory

Restaurants and cafés with structured business data are added to the directory as they are verified; opening hours shown are as published by the business.