Maltese cuisine: beyond pastizzi

Most travellers leave Malta able to name one Maltese food: the pastizz. It is the iconic flaky pastry, sold from every corner café, filled with ricotta or mushy peas. It is cheap, it is delicious, it is everywhere. It is also a tiny corner of an actual Maltese culinary tradition that includes rabbit stewed in wine, sourdough breads dating to Roman times, dolphinfish pie that only exists for two months of the year, bean dips that take an hour to make properly, and a confectionery culture as developed as Sicily’s. The longer-form magazine essay Eating beyond pastizzi makes the case for the other 95% of the cuisine.

This is what to actually eat in Malta, and where.

The historical layers

Maltese cuisine sits at the intersection of three major traditions:

• Sicilian: pasta, tomato-based sauces, citrus, almonds, cheese cultures, baroque desserts.
• North African: cumin, coriander, ground beans, slow-cooked stews, flatbreads, capers.
• British colonial: tea culture, bread-and-butter pudding, milky savoury sauces, the addition of beer to traditional rabbit stews.

The Maltese have absorbed all three over centuries without fully erasing the older layers. A modern Maltese kitchen serves all three traditions on the same menu, often in the same dish.

The essential dishes

Pastizzi (the famous one)

Flaky filo-style pastry filled with either ricotta (irkotta) or split-pea mush (pizelli). Sold from “pastizzeriji” (counter-only shops) at €0.50-0.80 each. The best are eaten hot, within five minutes of leaving the oven.

Where to eat the authentic version:

• Crystal Palace at the bottom of the Rabat hill (the most famous; cash only; queue at lunch).
• Serkin Café in Rabat (similar quality; quieter).
• Tas-Serkin in Sliema for a Sliema-side option.

Skip the touristy pastizzi at the Marsaxlokk Sunday market or the Valletta seafront kiosks. Both are competent but expensive (€1.50-2 each); the village pastizzeriji are the real thing.

Ftira

A flat sourdough disc-shaped bread, traditionally Gozitan but eaten across the country. The version most travellers encounter is Ftira Maltija: a sourdough flatbread sliced horizontally, drizzled with olive oil, then filled with tuna, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, ġbejna (Gozitan sheep’s-milk cheese), olives, and sometimes hard-boiled egg.

One ftira feeds two people. It is the perfect lunch.

Where to eat it:

• Maxokk Bakery in Xagħra, Gozo (cash only; the bakery has been making ftira to the same recipe since 1932).
• Mekren’s Bakery in Nadur, Gozo.
• Country store in Cospicua: smaller, more casual.
• Almost any decent Maltese kitchen lists ftira on the lunch menu.

Fenek bil-birra (rabbit stew with beer)

The national dish. Wild rabbit (or farmed; the difference matters), slow-cooked with beer (Cisk or Hopleaf, the Maltese brands), red wine, garlic, bay leaves, tomato, and root vegetables. Served with pasta as a starter (the sauce is used to dress the pasta) and the rabbit as the main course.

This is a Sunday meal, not a quick lunch. A full fenek service takes two to three hours; the cook starts at 10:00 for a 13:00 lunch.

Where to eat it:

• United Bar and Restaurant in Mgarr (the village in north Malta, not the Gozo port). Famous for rabbit; reservations essential.
• Diar il-Bniet in Dingli. Farm-to-table, large portions.
• Ta’ Marija in Mosta. The traditional Maltese kitchen restaurant.
• The Boathouse in Marsaskala. Coastal version, good value.

Lampuki pie

Lampuki (dolphinfish in English, mahi-mahi in Spanish) is the autumn fish of Malta. The fishing season runs from late August to early November when the schools migrate through Maltese waters. Outside the season, fresh lampuki is genuinely unavailable.

Lampuki pie is the traditional preparation: chunks of lampuki in a thick tomato-onion-caper-olive base, topped with shortcrust pastry, baked. Served warm with a wedge of lemon.

Where to eat it (in season only):

• The Marsaxlokk seafront restaurants, mainly Tartarun and Ir-Rizzu.
• Ta’ Pawlu in Birzebbuga, smaller and quieter.
• Most decent Maltese kitchens list it as a seasonal special.

Asking for lampuki pie outside the September-October window will get you a polite refusal or an apologetic frozen version. Time the trip if this matters.

Bigilla

A dip of dried broad beans, garlic, olive oil, lemon, and chili, eaten with bread or galletti (the small dry savoury biscuits). Often the first thing brought to your table at a traditional Maltese restaurant, along with a small basket of bread, olives, and sometimes pickled vegetables.

Bigilla is the North African layer most visible in Maltese cooking. The technique (dried beans soaked overnight, slow-cooked with garlic, blended) is essentially identical to the bessara of Tunisia and Morocco.

Where to eat it: every traditional Maltese restaurant. The complimentary version at the start of a meal is the usual format.

Ġbejniet (Gozitan cheese)

Small round cheeses made from sheep’s milk, sun-dried for 24 to 48 hours, then either eaten fresh (“frischi”) or aged in salt and black pepper (“moħlija”). The fresh version is mild and slightly sweet; the aged version is sharp and dense.

Gozitan cheese-makers still produce these traditionally, often as a household side-business. The cheeses appear on every Maltese cheese plate.

Where to buy them: Ta’ Pawl in Xagħra (Gozo), or any Gozo village market.

Pastizzi cousins: qassatat and timpana

Qassatat are baked savoury pastries similar to pastizzi but made with a heavier shortcrust dough rather than flaky filo. Filled with ricotta, peas, anchovies, or spinach.

Timpana is a baked macaroni dish: pasta layered with a meat-and-tomato sauce, ricotta, hard-boiled eggs, and topped with shortcrust pastry. It is closer to Sicilian timballo than to anything else in Italy, but cooked in deeper trays and meant for big family meals.

Where to eat timpana: traditional Maltese kitchens (Diar il-Bniet, Ta’ Marija, The Boathouse). It is almost always pre-baked and warmed; the dish takes 90 minutes to make from scratch.

Drinks

Wine: Maltese wine production is small but real. Three serious wineries (Marsovin, Camilleri Wines, Meridiana) produce drinkable to very good wines. Standout grapes: Ġellewża (Maltese red), Girgentina (Maltese white). The Marnisi wine from Marsovin’s Hal-Marnisi Estate is the most often-found high-end Maltese red.

Beer: Cisk is the local lager (light, easy-drinking). Hopleaf is the local ale (slightly heavier; often used in fenek bil-birra). Lord Chambray Brewery in Mġarr (Gozo) produces small-batch craft beers; their Blue Lagoon pale ale is good.

Spirits: Anisette (an aniseed liqueur similar to Italian sambuca) is the traditional Maltese aperitif. Bajtra is a prickly-pear cactus liqueur, sweet and ruby-red, mostly drunk at room temperature after dinner.

Coffee: standard Italian espresso culture. Most cafés serve espresso, macchiato, and cappuccino (Maltese cappuccino is often slightly sweeter and milkier than Italian).

Tea: the British colonial legacy. Tea-with-milk is the standard pastizz accompaniment.

Where to eat

For a serious food trip, prioritise:

• Diar il-Bniet (Dingli): farm-to-table Maltese, large portions, working farm out back.
• United Bar and Restaurant (Mġarr, north Malta): the famous rabbit place.
• Ta’ Frenc (Xagħra, Gozo): high-end Gozitan-Maltese, the only Michelin-recommended (not starred) restaurant on Gozo.
• De Mondion at the Xara Palace (Mdina): the only Michelin star in Malta. Tasting menu around €130 per person.
• Tartarun (Marsaxlokk): set seafood menus, book ahead.
• Ta’ Marija (Mosta): the traditional Maltese kitchen template.
• Crystal Palace pastizzeria (Rabat): the famous pastizz counter.
• Maxokk Bakery (Xagħra): the famous ftira.
• Ic-Cima (Xlendi, Gozo): casual coastal Maltese.

For shorter food breaks:

• Legligin Wine Bar (Valletta): small plates, large wine list.
• Rampila (Valletta): in the bastion walls.
• Trattoria AD 1530 (Mdina): casual pasta with Mdina atmosphere.
• Capo Crudo (Sliema): raw fish and ceviche, a slight departure from traditional Maltese but very good.
• Rew Rew (Mġarr ix-Xini, Gozo): cash-only slipway restaurant.

What NOT to eat

• Anything billed as “traditional Maltese folklore” at a hotel buffet. The actual Maltese kitchens are 15 minutes’ drive away.
• Pastizzi in tourist-zone kiosks at €1.50-2 each. Go to a village pastizzeria for €0.60.
• Lampuki pie outside September-November. The frozen version is sad.
• The “fenek” on Sliema-strip restaurant menus. Usually farmed rabbit, fast-cooked, served in a thin tomato sauce. Drive 20 minutes to United Bar or Diar il-Bniet for the real thing.

The honest paragraph

Maltese food rewards the same approach that the rest of the country rewards: small towns, slow meals, the kitchens that have not built English-language signage. The Sicilian-North African-British layering produces dishes you cannot eat anywhere else: rabbit cooked in beer, dolphinfish baked under pastry, broad-bean dips with sourdough flatbreads. The pastizzi are the entry point, not the destination. The full menu takes a week and rewards a fork-in-hand approach to the country.

Related reading

• Maltese food experience: the bookable cooking class and food tour options.
• Marsaxlokk fish market: where the fish on the menus comes from.
• Eating beyond pastizzi: the long version of this argument.
• Luzzu fishing boats: the fleet behind the Sunday fish.
• Village festas: when the country eats together.