Malta's hotspots: Balzan

The newest restaurants, bars and cafes in Malta and Gozo.

It's always great to find a new bar, restaurant or coffee shop.
Whether you are just looking for the perfect capuccino, the tastiest take-out or want to surprise your partner with a romantic dinner,
I aim to provide you with the info on what's out there and how to get there.

Opening soon:

Pizza Hut at PAVI supermarket.

ITALIAN pizza and pasta restaurant at Malta International Airport.

Please note that you can search this blog to find all of the types of venue or the town you are looking for, eg 'wine bar' 'outdoor' 'Wi-Fi'.

There is also a Google Map Search gadget further down to help you locate featured places. Search for 'Town' 'Malta'.

If you have details of a new bar, restaurant or cafe, please send them to me at: zillahbugeja@gmail.com

Why not bookmark this site so you can return easily?

Showing posts with label Balzan. Show all posts

Friday, June 12, 2009

Central spot

DeVine wine bar and snack shack
Salads, pies, wraps, fruit platters, rice salad, mixed platters. Open from 10am till late. Set in a garden, background music.
Athenaeum Spa, Corinthia Palace Hotel and Spa, DePaule Avenue, Balzan. Tel 9920 6180.

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How this blog originated

Why would I want to write about new restaurants in Malta? It seems like Malta is overrun by restaurants. I remember when my family opened the Al Fresco in Birzebugia 1984 and we were immediately packed out, with people sitting on the walls eating their food. They were hungry, not simply literally, for new places to go.

Times have changed and the competition is fierce. I can recall the days when burger buns didn’t exist, a burger was served on toasted sliced bread. The first pizza, that famous semi-freddo dessert in Valletta...ah, such good memories. Those were the days when going to the cinema was an exciting event too, even though the cinemas were full of sweet wrappers, for some reason we often had to queue outside, there was a limited choice of sweets, those awful home-made crisps that had salt in separate plastic bags. And people smoked inside the cinema! But for some reason it was great fun. Whether you watched the film or not, you know what I mean…

Something drove me to want to provide information on the newest places to eat and drink. I can't explain it, but I decided to give it a try. Imagine my shock and horror when it seemed like almost everyone I spoke to about the idea, either had had the same idea or someone in their family wanted to do it. Should I take the risk of losing friends, or worse still, not do it and possibly neither of us would? I decided to give it a shot, just to see how it would go.

It takes a lot of work, like everything worth doing. I am learning about the internet and search engine optimisation and you name it, along the way.

What is fascinating about the restaurant and coffee shop scene is that it is being inundated by the Italians. They are opening places here because they can easily, quickly and cheaply import their ingredients, and because our restaurant prices are generally higher than in bella Italia, they stand to make more profit. That is what I have been told. So now we have coffee shops and restaurants which really do make you feel like you are in Italy. While competition is always a good thing, local catering places may need to pull their socks up and I do feel it is regretful that local producers' goods aren't being bought. Thoughts about our carbon footprint are yet to be considered.

Even though we are a tiny island, you can eat Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Greek, Chinese, Turkish fast food, Bulgarian and Russian. Let me know if there are any I have left out.

Maltese food is making a come-back at wine bars, serving the de rigeur platter of pickles, goat’s cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and olives with crackers and delicious Maltese bread. This is not how we eat at home though, it is more like an advert for Maltese food for the foreigners, more like appetizers than a meal.

I would like to see more creativity using local produce and the creation of a new Maltese cuisine, where chefs use local ingredients in innovative ways. I have always thought that sweet pastizzi would work well – pastizzi are ricotta-filled pies made from flaky pastry. And I feel we still have a long way to go towards the appreciation of healthy food. Never mind. We’ll get there.

For visitors to the islands, there is an enormous choice of places to eat. I would recommend the ‘workers’ places, the heaving lunch-time restaurants where you choose from what’s available, prices are good, service is quick. Andrew’s Bar in Birkirkara and Mgarr Farmers Bar in Zebbiegh are my favourites. That is as far as I will go with recommending places, because there are so many great restaurants, especially in the five star hotels. But also, Murphy’s Law where anything that can go wrong, will, is part and parcel of the catering world. That is why this is just an informative blog on the newest restaurants, bars and cafes. I feel it is only fair.

Malta's hotspots

The newest restaurants, bars and cafes in Malta and Gozo.

Blog Archive

Search This Blog

Friday, June 12, 2009

Central spot

How this blog originated

Malta's hotspots

The newest restaurants, bars and cafes in Malta and Gozo.

Blog Archive

Search This Blog

Subscribe To

Friday, June 12, 2009

Central spot

How this blog originated