Maltese Cuisine: What to Eat and Where to Find It

Maltese cuisine is rustic, Mediterranean and unmistakably its own — shaped by Sicily and North Africa, built on bread, seasonal vegetables, rabbit and the day's catch. It's not a flashy food culture, but it's an honest one: intensely flavoured, generous in portion and deeply tied to the agricultural and fishing rhythms of a small island.

The icons

• Pastizzi — Flaky diamond-shaped pastries filled with ricotta (tal-irkotta) or mushy peas (tal-piżelli). The national snack — found at every pastizzerija, eaten at any hour, costs under €1. Do not leave without eating one warm from the oven.
• Stuffat tal-fenek (rabbit stew) — The national dish: rabbit braised slowly in red wine, garlic, tomatoes and bay leaves, often served as part of a multi-course fenkata starting with spaghetti in the same sauce.
• Ftira — Ring-shaped sourdough bread filled with tuna, olives, capers, tomatoes and olive oil. Inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.
• Ħobż biż-żejt — Crusty bread with tomato paste and olive oil, topped with tuna, capers, olives and fresh tomatoes. The everyday sandwich of Malta.

More dishes to try

• Imqarrun il-forn — baked macaroni with meat sauce
• Timpana — pasta baked inside a shortcrust pastry case
• Lampuki pie — autumn speciality using mahi-mahi, baked in a savoury pie
• Bragioli — thin beef slices rolled around a herb-and-egg stuffing, braised in red wine
• Aljotta — a clear, garlicky fish soup with rice and herbs
• Kapunata — Maltese ratatouille of roasted aubergine, tomatoes, capers and olives
• Ġbejniet — Gozitan sheep's and goat's milk cheeselets, sold fresh or peppered and dried

Sweets, drinks and where to eat

Sweets worth trying: imqaret (date-filled deep-fried pastries), kannoli, pudina (bread pudding), helwa tat-tork (sesame halva). To drink: Kinnie, the bittersweet Maltese soft drink made from bitter oranges and aromatic herbs; Cisk, the local lager; and local wines made from Ġellewża and Girgentina grapes.

For the freshest fish, go to Marsaxlokk — the waterfront restaurants serve what came in that morning, and the Sunday market is the island's most atmospheric food scene. Village pastizzerijas for snacks at any hour. For rabbit, a countryside fenkata offers the full multi-course Maltese experience.