Ed eats

Black Pig
95 Old Bakery Street,
Valletta
Tel: 2122 1606

Food: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Underpromise and overdeliver. It sounds like a mantra that an American tech company would have emblazoned on its walls. I’m pretty sure it is out there somewhere, repeated by an annoying manager to her team of minions who are all set to conquer the world. Well, annoying as it is, she’s right.

Food that breaks away from the boring causes divides because it is interesting enough for us to form opinions about

Things become tougher when you’re not the one doing all the promises. Brand fans (Apple fans spring to mind) tend to be more vociferous about a product than the company that produces its products. If I were to tell anyone that owning a Mac and writing on a Mac will magically turn drivel into a novel, then I’m lying about a brand and causing one disappointed writer as a result. And Apple have no fault in the matter.

You’ve experienced this with restaurants. A friend recommends the ‘best restaurant ever’. You turn up and it is good but not great. Your experience falls beneath your expectations and whom should you blame? Your friend’s hyperbole or the restaurant itself?

This is something I am painfully aware of because this column goes a little beyond a one-to-one recommendation, which is why I do my utmost to tell the tale of my experience as faithfully as I possibly can. I’m mostly human, however (and have a certificate to prove it), so the views I express are tainted by my personal expectations and preferences.

A restaurant that has repeatedly been very highly recommended is Black Pig in Valletta. And to set the record straight at the very outset, it is indeed a very good restaurant by a number of measures. If you want to stop reading now and just book a table, you will most likely have an excellent meal.

I don’t believe that statement to be overpromising on behalf of Black Pig though, because since it was highly recommended by a diverse set of people, and since I had a positive experience when I visited, there is no reason for me to doubt their ability to serve excellent food.

If you’re still reading, you will be expecting a ‘but’. Well, there is no real ‘but’. There is the matter of my being there with very high expectations though, so you will read some minor criticism that is based on the bar that had been set for Black Pig by others.

The restaurant is hidden away almost at the very bottom of Old Bakery Street. This made parking quite easy. Telling the colour of the damned parking bays at night is something of an impossibility though, so I could easily have been parked in a box coloured violet for ‘Those who like Valletta but are not permanent residents of it and are allowed to park for 17 minutes on Thursdays’. Or something equally ludicrous.

The dining area is inside the front room of a lovely Valletta house, with high, vaulted ceilings. This means that beyond a chandelier, oval-backed Louis XVI chairs and meticulously laid tables, there is little by way of décor.

The single room also means that, should you care to, you can easily tune in to the conversation of any other table with relative ease. I talk nonsense most of the time so any eavesdroppers were surely confused, disappointed, or both.

A very smart and polite young man met us at the door. He bears the hallmark of formal training and proper front-of-house experience so we knew we were in for a treat. He led us to a vacant table and gave us time to settle in, then returned with food and wine menus.

The food menu is restricted in the manner of fine dining restaurants. Five starters and five main courses do the trick.

The wine menu is more extensive. It is well curated and is sorted by price, going from a reasonable €20 to three-figure prices in neat steps.

Every item on the menu is a relatively innovative approach to traditional mainstays. The only pasta dish, for instance, consisted of fettuccine with ox-tail, cured pork and slow-cooked egg yolk.

I was very tempted by a Jerusalem artichoke velouté that had the added kick of beaufort (a fabulous French Alpine cheese in the gruyère tradition) and caramelised onions.

Then I decided to follow our host’s recommendation and picked the prawns seared with turnip and vanilla purée, served with fermented cabbage and a puy lentil dressing.

The inveterate carnivore who was sharing the Black Pig experience had her eyes on the beef tartare, served with anchovies and warm dashi. It sounded like an umami overkill to me, but I was quite curious nonetheless.

My main course would be in the form of a slow-roasted neck of lamb served with roasted onion purée and globe artichokes while hers was a grilled duck breast with braised fennel and preserved lemon.

The descriptions are pretty much the way I’ve written them. I silently thanked the chef for not faffing around with the descriptions too much, restricting them to little more than a list of ingredients.

I’ve grown tired of restaurants (that aspire to fine dining) that have tossed, sprinkled, crusted, handpicked and infused a free-range, organic chicken breast that’s been twice-cooked and thrice-finished somewhere or other. And if there’s chicken on a fine dining menu, then I’m afraid I’m walking right back out before placing my order.

We were served an amuse bouche in the form of cauliflower purée with seaweed and with monkfish in pastry cases so thin I squished it before I managed to make it across the table. I salvaged a couple though, and they were lovely.

Our wine, a Frappato by COS in Sicily, was served as expertly as I expected it to be and this was followed by fresh bread and a local olive oil (Ta’ Betta). This was followed quite quickly by our starters.

The beef tartare is served in a deep plate and warm dashi was poured at table around the mound of chopped beef. Even more elegantly presented was my starter, with shelled prawns atop the fermented cabbage and puy lentil served around the central arrangement.

I loved everything about the dish except the puy lentil and, as I stated earlier, I’m being very picky. The cabbage added a beautifully textured mouth-feel to the prawn. The turnip was there but politely receded into the background, serving more as a vehicle to the vanilla that was present but was no more than an interesting hint. Then the puy lentil, potent as ever, threatened to upset the marvellous balance.

I wasn’t too fond of the tartare and this is mainly to do with my preference for this dish in its simplest, most traditional form. I found the dashi and the anchovies to be overpowering when they combined forces, each a formidable presence in its own right, and the steak itself struggled to make it to the foreground.

I voiced my opinion and this was instantly rubbished by my better half who had instantly fallen in love with the dish. Food that breaks away from the boring causes divides because it is interesting enough for us to form opinions about it.

My main course was fabulous from start to finish. The neck had been served rare, as I requested it, separated from the onion purée by a bed of wilted spinach. There is nothing outlandish going on here – it is a simple and effective combination of ingredients and techniques and wins my favour for its very restraint.

The duck was just as delightful. Also served rare, the skin had been crisped without overcooking the delicate flesh beneath it.

We’re used to citrus and duck, but the muted zest of the preserved lemon made a welcome break from orange sauce as it danced around the acidic bite of the fennel. We couldn’t decide which dish we preferred and I’ll be in serious internal conflict next time I visit if I have to choose between the two.

I’m ashamed to say we skipped dessert and I skipped straight to a grappa from Black Pig’s rather complete list of post-prandial spirits. Time had run out for me and I’d eaten my fill so I left dessert as a very good reason to try yet another round in this chef’s arsenal when I return.

We paid almost €60 each, steep for two courses by normal standards, but then this kitchen cannot be likened to normal standards. There is a passionate and well-researched inventiveness going on behind those doors and I suggest, or challenge, anyone who is after a refreshing break from the normal to place a reservation.

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