Malta eats well and eats late. There are more restaurants per head here than almost anywhere and the quality varies widely. What you pay depends more on the location than on the food. It is how much sea you can see from the table.
Where to eat by area
Valletta
The best of it is concentrated in the side streets rather than on the main thoroughfares. Small rooms, short menus, and a city that empties after seven so you are eating among locals rather than crowds.
Book at weekends. There are not many tables and the good places fill.
Valletta after dark
Sliema and St Julian’s
You get everything from excellent to forgettable within a few hundred metres. The seafront is priced for the view. Three streets inland is a different price list and usually better food.
This is where the rule earns its keep more than anywhere else on the islands.
Eating well for less
The villages
The menus are short, rabbit is usually on the board, and the prices are about a third of what you pay on the front. This is the category most visitors never reach. It is where Maltese food is found.
In Gozo, the farmhouse restaurants inland are among the best meals on either island.
What to orderBook a food tour
Marsaxlokk and the Three Cities
Marsaxlokk puts you beside the painted luzzu (a traditional fishing boat) boats with fish landed that morning. It is touristy and still worth it, especially on a day that is not Sunday.
The Three Cities terraces look back at Valletta across the Grand Harbour. They are quieter and better value than the same view from Sliema.
Tables with a view
An honest word on each area
What each part is good for
- Valletta
- The most interesting eating in Malta is here now, in the side streets rather than the main thoroughfares. Expect small rooms and short menus, in a city that empties after seven.
- Sliema and St Julian’s
- This area has the widest choice and the widest quality range. The seafront is priced for the view. Three streets inland you get a different price list and usually better food.
- The Three Cities
- The terraces here look back at Valletta across the Grand Harbour. They are quieter and better value than the same view from Sliema.
- Marsaxlokk
- You eat on the water with the painted luzzu boats in front of you. It is touristy and still worth it, especially on a day that is not Sunday.
- The villages
- This is where Maltese food is found. Menus are short, rabbit is on the board, and the prices are a third of the seafront.
- Gozo
- Xlendi and Marsalforn have the harbour tables. Inland there are farmhouse restaurants that serve some of the best meals on either island.
A short menu written in Maltese first is the most reliable signal on the islands. A kitchen offering pizza, curry, burgers and grilled fish is not specialising in any of them. And a room that is empty at eight and full at nine thirty is the right one, because Maltese dinner runs late.
Restaurants change hands, chefs move and standards shift. A list here would be out of date before you read it. Verified places belong in the directory, where they can be checked and updated, rather than in an editorial page that nobody revisits.