Pastizzi: good at any hour
Flaky pastry stuffed with ricotta (tal-irkotta) or mushy peas (tal-piżelli), sold from bakeries, hatches and village bars, and eaten in your hands without a plate. Watch the first bite, because the filling comes out scalding and the pastry ends up all over your shirt.
For plenty of people, the best time is right after a night out. When you leave the clubs in Paceville, a couple of hot pastizzi on the street fix almost anything. Some places stay open late or start baking very early; hours change, so ask around when you come out.
Bread with everything: ħobż biż-żejt and ftira
Ħobż, the local crusty sourdough, is where this starts. For ħobż biż-żejt, literally bread with oil, it's rubbed with kunserva, a sweet tomato paste, then loaded with tuna, capers, olives and onion. You eat it in your swimsuit with no cutlery.
Ftira depends on the island. On the main one, it's a ring-shaped flatbread that gets split and filled like a sandwich, and the craft of baking it has been on UNESCO's intangible heritage list since 2020. Gozo's version is thinner, topped with potato, anchovies and cheese, closer to a pizza: try it if you spend a day on Gozo.
Rabbit, two ways
Stuffat tal-fenek is rabbit cooked slowly with red wine, tomato and garlic.
A fenkata is the social version: spaghetti with the stew's sauce first, then the rabbit itself, fried or stewed, with potatoes. It's very much a Sunday thing, and the village best known for it is Mġarr (the one in the northwest of the main island, not the Gozo port with the same name). Plan nothing for straight afterwards.
From the sea: lampuki and aljotta
Lampuki, known elsewhere as mahi-mahi or dolphin fish, are caught under floating palm-frond rafts called kannizzati, and in season you'll see them at markets and on menus. They're fried with a tomato and caper sauce or baked into torta tal-lampuki, a pie with vegetables and olives.
Aljotta is a light fish soup with plenty of garlic, tomato, rice and herbs: a good way to open a meal.
The Sunday table: bragioli and timpana
Bragioli, often called beef olives in English even though there isn't an olive in sight, are thin slices of beef rolled around breadcrumbs, hard-boiled egg and bacon, then simmered in sauce.
Timpana is macaroni with ragù, egg and cheese baked inside a pastry crust, a heavyweight from family celebrations. Order it only if dancing isn't on the agenda for the next few hours.
Small plates: bigilla, kapunata and ġbejniet
Many menus offer a platter with all of these, a quick way to try several at once. To go with it, have a look at local drinks and sweets.
- Bigilla: a paste of dried broad beans with garlic, chilli and herbs, served with galletti (crackers) or bread.
- Kapunata: a stew of aubergine, pepper, tomato, capers and olives, cousin of Sicilian caponata; served cold or warm on the side.
- Ġbejniet: small round cheeses, traditionally made from sheep's milk, typical of Gozo. They come fresh, dried or peppered: fresh in salads, peppered with a drink.
