A street named desire

This season, all you need for your dose of festive cheer is to walk down to Archbishop’s Street in Valletta; Angelica, The Office and Aaron’s Kitchen have put together the kind of treats that put the Christmas back in your tastebuds.

Angelica

The festive season brings with it the opportunity to enjoy the unique Angelica experience at your own home thanks to the luscious, bespoke Christmas hampers that are available.

Angelica is where Mona Farrugia and her cupcake princesses and princes will be removing all the pain from choosing and ordering hampers for your business associates, clients or friends. Mona has devised a very simple system guaranteed to work: decide on a bracket for your budget and the lovely people at Angelica will do the rest, creating a designer hamper according to spec. You can choose to go for a simple packaging that won’t cut into your budget and focus on the contents… or else go that extra mile with packaging that not only looks beautiful but will also be re-used by the recipient.

As for the contents, there’s a fantabulous selection of Amadei chocolate bars and hot chocolates (made of pure chocolate with no additives), Suki Tea Pyramids, Champagnes and wines. If you know the recipient of the hamper personally, feel free to offer the Angelica team an indication of which type of contents to focus on. Otherwise, you can trust Angelica to come up with an appropriate selection. For those who’d like to include one of Angelica’s home-made cakes in their hampers, special packaging is also available to ensure that the cakes arrive impeccably presented.

New Year’s Eve Champagne Party

Angelica’s New Year’s Eve do will bring together a group of people who are like-minded for an event that includes free-flowing Champagne, French cheeses, Lebanese hors d’oeuvres and other drinks and luscious titbits. Pre-booking is essential: Angelica will be operating an open view guest list so that everyone can see who their fellow party-goers on the night will be. That way, there will be no nasty surprises!

Festive goodies

During the month of December, Angelica will be serving the usual array of goodies, including the Chocolate Nemesis (a flourless cake made of almost pure chocolate), the Chocolate Cake with ganache, the Angel Cake (chocolate and toffee), Carrot Cake, Cupcakes, Panforte, a selection of Spectacular Sins (chocolate, coconut and almond and cherry) and a limited consignment of Frutta Martorana (Marzipan fruit sweets that are handmade by some lovely Sicilian ladies). And of course, Angelica will continue to be open seven days a week all through December.

Angelica is also accepting private bookings. Call on 2122 2777 or 7927 5727 or e-mail mona@angelicamalta.com for more information.

Aaron’s Kitchen

Enter Aaron’s Kitchen and you enter a world of genuine food made of the freshest, best quality ingredients, of recipes that are simple enough for the palate to truly appreciate but that somehow deliver that delicious twist for your taste-buds.

Because Aaron De Gabriele, chef patron (of Aroma Kitchen fame), knows his ingredients and knows how best to combine them for that sumptuous, home-made taste.

Rather than the usual menu, Aaron’s Kitchen operates on a daily system of specials. Everyday, patrons are offered a pasta dish, a soup and a meat or fish dish that Aaron will have created himself. In the chef’s words, expect the unexpected. His Christmas turkey, for instance, won’t be limited to the normal stuffing – instead, he will combe the stuffed bird with a Wellington style puff pastry. Then there are his sweets, always home-made of course; a typical favourite are the Imqaret (date fritters) served with Cinnamon ice-cream.

“I don’t like to offer the obvious,” he says. “I want to offer you something that you will not find anywhere else. You don’t come here for a run of the mill Spaghetti Bolognese! You come here for a lovely plate of freshly prepared pasta that does not come off a standard menu.”

Aaron prides himself on reasonable prices: he mentions that his Aberdeen Angus, weighing in at 500 grams, is offered at about €22. His lobster comes in at a surprising €16.50. Aaron puts paid to the notion that you cannot enjoy freshly prepared, genuine food at a restaurant without paying the earth.

“Our focus is on offering dishes with a genuine taste. Our patrons know that if they come here for Spaghetti Con Gamberi, the prawns they get in their plate are the fresh, genuine article. My wife takes care of the front of house while I take care of the kitchen – for us, this is not just a job but a passion. Unless you’re really in love with cooking, you can’t run a top notch restaurant. It’s simple.”

Aaron’s Kitchen is open every day for lunch except Thursday and everyday for dinner except Thursday and Sunday. Aaron’s Kitchen. Call on 2123 0636 or 9945 8356 for more information.

D’Office

This quirky little bistro-style restaurant enjoys the best of both worlds: you’ll find its entrance right on Archbishop Street and you’ll go inside to find a cosy, pretty place that wouldn’t look out of place in somewhere like Paris. Then you look sideways and you notice D’Office’s surprise outside dining area, right in quaint St Frederick’s Street – the perfect little spot for those who enjoy a bit of people watching to accompany their lunch or dinner.

D’Office has always enjoyed a stellar reputation with the Valletta crowd and since its re-opening last July it was eagerly welcomed back like an old and trusted friend. And there’s good reason for trusting D’Office – open all day from eleven in the morning, it’s a place where you’re guaranteed genuinely delicious food at a price that won’t break the bank.

The menu is compact while offering a great choice. Most people swear by the pasta and the beautifully grilled meat or fish – if you’re after perfectly prepared food using genuine ingredients, then you’ll definitely emerge from D’Office with a self-satisfied grin. Of course, there are also the tantalising specialties that change on a daily basis.

But besides the regular menu, D’Office is well-loved because it’s one of the few places that will feed you – and feed you well – no matter what time of the day you show up. Don’t feel like cooking after a day at the office? Feeling peckish after your shopping? You’re welcome at D’Office whether it’s five o’clock or eight. And if it’s just a bottle of wine and some nibbles that you feel like… well it’s not a problem because the lovely people at D’Office will prepare these too.

Best thing of all? For under €10 per person, you know you will get a satisfying, flavourful and beautifully presented meal that is freshly prepared on the spot. Few restaurants can make this claim nowadays but as they say, the proof is in the pudding and D’Office have certainly proved this claim.

Check out the menus on www.d-officevalletta.com or on the chalk boards outside the entrance. For reservations, call 2722 1475 or 9944 1120.