Maltese food reflects the island's layered history — Italian and Sicilian influences sit alongside Arab, British, and Provençal traces, all built on a foundation of good local ingredients: fresh fish, olive oil, capers, wild herbs, and excellent local honey.
What to eat
Pastizzi are the essential street food: flaky pastry parcels filled with ricotta or mushy peas, sold from pastizzerie for around 25 cents each. They are best eaten hot, straight from the tray. The ones from Crystal Palace in Rabat have a local following.
Stuffat tal-fenek — rabbit stew — is the national dish. Rabbit is marinated in wine then slow-cooked with garlic, tomatoes, and herbs until the meat falls off the bone. Fenek moqli (fried rabbit with garlic) is the other common preparation. You'll find it on most traditional Maltese restaurant menus.
Ftira is a Maltese sourdough ring bread, listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. As a sandwich (ftira tal-Malti), it comes filled with tuna, capers, olives, tomato, and anything else the cook feels like adding. Good casual lunch food.
Aljotta is a Maltese fish soup — clear, garlicky, flavoured with marjoram, with chunks of whatever fish is fresh that day. More interesting than it looks.
Gbejniet are small round cheeses made from sheep's or goat's milk. Served fresh (soft and mild) or dried and peppered. You find them on bread as a starter in many restaurants.
For something sweet, look out for imqaret — deep-fried date pastries — and qubbajt, a nougat sold at festas.
Where to eat
Valletta has the widest range, from cheap lunch spots around the market on Merchants Street to more serious restaurants around St John Street and the waterfront. Sliema and St Julian's have the most international choice. For traditional Maltese cooking, head to a village restaurant — Mgarr, Marsaxlokk, or Victoria in Gozo — where the menus are less adapted to tourist expectations.
The Sunday morning fish market at Marsaxlokk is the best place to see local produce: fresh lampuki (dolphinfish), swordfish, and whatever else came in overnight.
Drink
Kinnie is Malta's own bittersweet soft drink, made from bitter oranges and a secret mix of herbs. Worth trying at least once. Cisk is the local lager and perfectly decent. Maltese wine production is small but has improved substantially in recent years; Marsovin and Meridiana are the main producers.