Comfortably worn denim

Ed eats

Wigi’s Kitchen
Main Street,
St Julian’s
Tel: 2137 7504

Food: 7/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

Walk into a room and hit the light switch. A very simple and mindless action sets off a sequence of events that quite incredibly lights up the room.

Fuel at a power station somewhere is converted into energy that is quietly and with no fuss channelled into a nationwide network and eventually makes it into the bulb that prevents us from walking into furniture.

Sadly, and because energy companies didn’t think this would happen to them, the little miracle that occurs every time we flick a switch has become such an inextricable part of our daily lives that we stopped considering it a wonder and don’t even think about it anymore.

I suspect that the barrage of branding efforts made by mobile companies serves to prevent us from regarding them as yet another utility company, a mere conduit that allows a conversation to happen.

The day they stop clamouring for our attention they will go the way of the energy companies and vanish into the dusty backrooms of our consciousness.

And like the energy companies, we will only ever remember their names when they bill us or when they break down. Who would want to have such a negative association when they are actually doing things right almost every day?

Sometimes someone mentions a restaurant to me that, to my mind, has gone the same way. Regulars visit the place often and go back for what, to their expectations and palate, is the most satisfying dining experience. And unless something goes wrong, they will never bother mentioning the place to others.

This kind of stasis is a double-edged sword. Habitual clientele will keep going there because a change is too much of a bother for some.

If the restaurant is proactive enough to keep some form of variety going, then the regulars always have a new experience to look forward to and this is even less of an incentive for them to try out new feeding grounds.

But this model does not encourage a healthy growth in clientele and natural attrition can gradually deplete the number of paying guests to unsustainable levels.

We’ve seen this happen and we are saddened at the way an ‘old favourite’ went the way of the dodo. If you don’t want this to happen to your own ‘old favourite’, I suggest you pay them a visit before the end of the month and leave some of your income in their coffers.

Talking about meeting up for dinner with some fellow gluttons, a name that I hadn’t heard mention of for a while turned up. Wigi’s, they said, and I tried to remember the last time I’d been there.

Wigi’s Kitchen is a small restaurant in Balluta that, according to their menu, is named after Louis’s skills in the kitchen.

A tiny sign on the first floor is all there is to announce the place and it is terribly easy to walk past the entrance 10 times and miss it. The restaurant itself is on the first floor and has a lovely view of Balluta bay to make up for a rather lacklustre interior.

There is nothing wrong with the place – it is just a general lack of deliberate design that makes it hard for me to warm up to the décor.

We were lucky, however, to be given a table right next to the window and the inky black water of the bay at night winked back at us every time it caught a reflection of the festa lights that had yet to be removed.

Up here we were far enough from the traffic and high enough to enjoy the view with a silent detachment.

A young lady turned up with menus, smiles, and heaps of good cheer. She instantly livened up the place and, like all the other members of Wigi staff who dealt with us throughout the course of the evening, made us feel welcome and quite at home.

I watched the way they interacted with other diners and they were just as friendly with everyone, occasionally verging on the familiar. These are the cases where diners are evidently regulars and they seemed to make up the majority of the patrons that night.

The menus take the approach of some of the finer places I have visited – restricted to five starters and five main courses – with the day’s date printed on them to reveal that the menus are actually changed daily.

In addition, there are special items that have not been listed and these include lamb chops and Aberdeen Angus ribeye as well as starters in the form of deep-fried calamari and neonati fritters.

We brightened up at the mention of fresh seafood available for starters and were even happier to note that the wine menus have been very well priced. We will have a white with our starters and a red with our mains since we all seemed to have picked seafood to start with and meat to follow.

We picked an Aligoté from Beaune in Burgundy, a grape that is practically exclusive to the region and produces light, cheerful whites. This had apple and citrus notes, possibly with a little help from Chardonnay in the blend.

It was a light-hearted treat with the delicately battered squid we had for starters. Joining the squid were neonati fritters that seemed to have been fried inside a case made out of the batter.

There weren’t enough neonati for all the fritters so they weren’t as packed with the little fish as I hoped they’d be.

Ordering buffalo mozzarella for starters is never my idea of something worth leaving the house for but then I am rarely the only person at table so I get to observe other people’s habits.

Wigi’s adds some fun to this ball of cheese by serving it atop a salad that includes fresh fruit for added zing.

There was something about the way the lamb chops were described to us that made me pick them and look forward to them. Four of the chops were served in a little pile, cooked medium-rare as I requested, and were quite possibly the best I’ve tasted.

I cut through the plump chops with ease and savoured every bite, accompanied by a Carmenère from Chile. This had cherry on the nose and a deep, crimson colour with a short finish. It isn’t the most robust of reds and turned out to be a decent match for the excellent lamb.

Two Aberdeen Angus ribeye steaks were being slowly consumed, one on either side of me.

To my right, the cave-dweller was sampling it served blue as requested. I prefer some more heat to the well-marbled cut, allowing the fat to dissolve a little and give a rich, buttery flavour but everyone is born with the right to freely choose one’s own cooking temperature.

I sampled the meat and, quite predictably, the fatty bits tasted of candle.

To my left was the same cut, this time served rare-to-medium. This is, to my palate, the best possible cooking temperature for meat stemming from an animal’s ribs.

The cut is generous, the cooking temperature bang on the money, but the steak hadn’t been adequately trimmed or aged. It was perfectly enjoyable but not to the extremely high standards the same kitchen had set with their lamb.

Grilled veg was lovely and the potatoes were enjoyable.

I didn’t have room for dessert but the steak-lovers had a sorbet and assured me that it was lovely.

We paid €45 per person – probably right in the middle of the expected price range. Any amount I’d have deducted for the décor is what I would have added for the excellent service so I suppose the bill was quite fair.

Wigi’s Kitchen can easily become the restaurant equivalent of that pair of comfortable jeans that we’ve worn a few times before. We chose them once and will do so again, there will be no unpleasant surprises, and we will hang onto them for as long as is sensibly possible.

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