Ghost of a happy memory

Ed eats

The Lord Nelson
278, Main Street Mosta
Tel: 2143 2590

Food: 5/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 5.5/10

I often think there exists an inverse proportion between the quality of food a restaurant serves and the beauty of the spot it occupies. This could be because any chef would rather sip a cold drink and enjoy a spectacular view when possible.

The spinach had been made holy by boiling the hell out of it

Chefs at restaurants in drab locations have no option but to face the heat of the kitchen, which is where they, in fact, belong.

Some of the more spectacularly located restaurants don’t even benefit from their proximity to nature where it matters most – fresh ingredients in the immediate vicinity.

Many ‘seafront’ restaurateurs watch while fish are dragged off fishing boats in the morning by the crateful, they stand by while these are loaded into vans and carted off to the fish market, then place orders for the same fish with the suppliers’ sales reps later on that afternoon.

Thankfully, Malta is too tiny for any distance travelled by fish from the coast and back again to matter.

I usually find that restaurants off the beaten track have more focus on the quality of their food and service, needing these as their calling cards in the absence of a seaside terrace or a view of a night skyline. I can think of a number of these that have fed me quite well, quite consistently.

One of these was The Lord Nelson in Mosta and I have fond memories of excellent meals consumed there a decade ago and even before that.

It is hard for me to describe its location as spectacular. In no hesitant terms, the restaurant bisects the road from Mosta to Naxxar, serving equally as a traffic sign as a restaurant.

On the pavement just outside the restaurant it is impossible to miss the gargantuan dome of Mosta church as it pierces the tranquil roofline like a dis-proportionate toadstool in an otherwise manicured lawn.

In times gone by I visited that church and sat in the back row. Back there the priest is barely visible so it is possible to miss his stern expression as he expresses his distaste for divorcees, homosexuals and Muslims, for instance, and think he’s cracking a joke.

On the outside it is impossible to doubt the purpose for its construction and it is an enormous reminder to Mosta’s congregation never to miss Mass on Sundays.

The Lord Nelson and the streets that embrace it are bathed in the gentle, amber glow of the lighting that spills off the church like a golden waterfall. The whole effect is quite impressive, and I spent a few moments taking it all in, feeling like I’d walked into a very cleverly-lit film set.

Inside we are met by an expression that was half contrite and half discouraging. The man who is running the show says that without a reservation we’d have to wait for quite a while for our food to be served since a couple of tables had been unexpectedly filled.

I was driven by the memory of excellent meals and was prepared to wait, especially since I’d been warned. The little rooms upstairs are, to my memory, little nooks and quite possibly crannies that are pleasant spaces to inhabit, reminisce, and eagerly wait for food.

We climb up to the first level where two tables are vacant. Then, like dogs staring at their bone-containing reflection, went up a further level to the second room that also had empty tables.

We picked a table for four and the waiter up here said he had no problem with a half-occupied table. A lucky couple had snagged the little table in the balcony.

The waiter rushed menus to us, looking busy and hurried as he dashed across all of the 20 feet that spanned the room. We look through the menu and there is evidence of an attempt to add an interesting twist to many of the dishes.

I am filled with joy at the descriptions of what could have been rather typical dishes but have been minutely transformed into interesting ones by the addition of a twist of this or a dash of that.

For starters we choose the prawn and coconut soup and the boneless rabbit, served with a rosemary pastry. For main course we’d be having the roast lamb and the duck, each with a pleasant little description that promised a little bit more than the standard fare.

We knew we were in for a wait and settled down comfortably. The room isn’t special in any way, with bare stone walls to give it an authentic Maltese look and a bizarre chandelier that failed to fill me with a desire to pack it up and take it home with me.

Quiet couples around me stared around themselves too and I’m not sure it was because they had nothing to say to each other or because they were secretly coveting the chandelier. They were welcome to it, I decided.

Our amouse bouche turned up in the form of a delicious take on hummus and sticks of cucumber and carrot, marred only by the addition of salty crackers that did nothing to help the delicate dip.

Wine was served by another waiter, one who was not hurried and who made a very good job of the entire process, serving the 2008 Ruvei Barbera d’Alba with aplomb and in a controlled and paced ritual. He even spotted a microscopic speck on one of our wine glasses and promptly replaced it.

When our starters finally turned up, speeding their way from the kitchen by our practically breathless waiter, I was quite taken by the presentation.

The soup, in a bowl that was almost square save for the rounded corners, had been finished with cream in very fine, parallel lines inscribed on the red-orange surface of the soup. My rabbit was in a little dip inside a huge dish, served with twisted pastry sticks at a jaunty angle.

The soup was more like a bisque, salty and thick, and lacking coconut. Tiny, tiny shrimps made a cameo appearance. It was more comforting than tasty, a bit like a soup out of a Marks and Spencer can when the flu comes knocking.

My rabbit was very tender but struggling beneath a thick, salty, cream-based sauce that contained not a hint of the fennel that had made me choose the dish. The spinach had been made holy by boiling the hell out of it and this provided a bit of colour but no texture. Tender as it was, it could have been chicken and I left most of it.

Another wait, one we had been prepared for, preceded our main course. The marathon runner served us. He most likely has thespian aspirations although is unlikely to ever be typecast as a sophisticate.

The lamb he served was excellent. The rack had been cut in half and elegantly criss-crossed into an architectural scale-model of what lambs look like in mind’s eye – all ribs and no woolly bits.

I should have ordered this for starters, main course and dessert. The potatoes served alongside were quite lovely and enjoyed the fennel my rabbit had missed.

The duck breast, ordered rare, had been overcooked and served with a sweet and rather enjoyable sauce. Around the rim of the plate was what I presumed to be the chef’s secret weapon.

Dots of bright red, glistening liquid were a tantalising mystery that, upon inspection, was revealed to be ketchup. The kind of ketchup that begs for a hot dog and is totally out of place here. Shocked, I returned to my delightful lamb until I had all but polished the ribs.

Dessert sounded enticing but I wasn’t prepared to take too many risks. I wanted to keep the lamb as the highlight of my evening, safeguarding the tattered shreds of good memories of The Lord Nelson that were fast fading.

The bane of old favourites is that they settle into a comfortable middle-ground that is uninspiring and, while not bad, does nothing to make one want to return.

I enjoyed reading Narnia as a child but I know I would hate the books were I to revisit them. I should have done the same with The Lord Nelson and stuck with a happy memory.

You can send e-mails about this column to ed.eatson@gmail.com or follow @edeats on Twitter. Or both.