Ed eats

San Andrea
Palazzo Castelletti
62, St Paul Street
Rabat
Tel 2145 2562

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

Most childhood recollections work in little snapshots. If I think back to a particular time, I get a couple of vivid Polaroids in my mind rather than a continuous timeline of events.

I was speaking to a close friend of mine recently and he chuckled about his young son wanting to shave. Explaining to a toddler that he’s too young to have a beard is hard to do without seeing the innocent hilarity of the situation.

I was quick to remind my friend that he’d spent a summer without an eyebrow when he had tried his own dad’s razor on the only facial hair he had at the time.

We had a laugh about this episode and, as this sort of thing does, it brought other little memories along. Snapshot, snapshot, snapshot. Each one associated with an emotion, with our photo catalogue of memory seeming to select in favour of the funny ones.

Coincidence had me in a very similar kind of chat with one of my favourite dining companions who I will, as I’ve done before, refer to as The Confessor. He went on this trip down memory lane, back to a time when we hadn’t even met. Back to a time, in fact, when I was no more than a Valentine’s card with intent.

He was telling me about a time during which he’d spent quite a while living in Rabat. More specifically, they lived inside a small part of a large house and, if I understood correctly, had access to the gardens of the larger house.

With a boyish grin, he des-cribed snapshots from a time that sounded happy and carefree. As a child, he’d bathe in the fountain that was at Sant’Andrija’s feet, referring to a statue that was somewhere in this famous garden.

There were frescoes beneath the impossibly high ceilings. There was an altar that had, at some point, been demolished. There was much running across the street to a ‘każin’. In general, The Confessor’s times in Rabat were associated with an innocent and uncomplicated happiness.

He recently discovered that the very same house, with the very same altar and frescoes and każin across the road, had been restored to its original splendour and turned into a restaurant. He naturally suggested we pay a visit and I was immediately excited about the prospect. I might not have been born when he’d sealed in all those happy memories but I was keen on visiting the place with him.

We met in Rabat and parked in that large public car park I normally visit when I’m after the pastizzi at Crystal Palace. We parked quite easily and when we’d nearly left the car park, a man hopped out of the shadows giving me quite a fright.

He wanted money from each of us for having used a public parking spot. And because The Confessor pointed out that we should do so to prevent him messing with our cars, we paid him. This is ransom and not a public service.

The palazzo, a minute’s walk away into Rabat, has been restored to a very high level. So high in fact, that the altar The Confessor recalled as having been destroyed at some point has been lovingly rebuilt. The statue of Sant’Andrija is there, too. A quick visit to the courtyard reveals extensive work done to the place, with an upstairs dining area above a large and very well-equipped kitchen that has glass walls on two sides so one can see the chefs hard at work.

We were led to the dining area downstairs that is reserved for the fine dining section and were seated at the only table in the centre of the room. I’m not normally keen on this seating arrangement but we got used to it quite quickly.

We were greeted and seated by the lady who is evidently running the front of house. She is keen on being efficient at what she does but occasionally comes across as quite overbearing. Good service is unobtrusive, and making an evident effort to make one’s presence felt works the wrong way.

By the end of the evening, what could have been a very relaxing setting had turned into something of a constant hovering presence. She is evidently very well trained, so dialling down the presence can turn the experience into a very enjoyable one.

Every dish is described in just enough detail to make it sound appealing without going overboard with the adjectives

The menus have been crafted by someone who has experience in fine-dining settings and who has taken care to extend this knowledge to a more local setting. Every dish is described in just enough detail to make it sound appealing without going overboard with the adjectives.

The selection is highly enticing, and within minutes we were fervently discussing the food on the menus and weighing our options. This is a good thing when menus are concerned because nothing quite gets an evening started like enthusiastic conversation about the food that lies in store.

We eventually placed our orders and The Confessor picked a wine from the list. This was served by a young man who was also well-trained and did his job very well, making sure we felt cared for without ever overstepping the mark.

Within minutes an amuse bouche was served, described as an antipasto by our hostess, lest we were thrown by the expression.

I appreciate this. It is a much safer approach than assuming knowledge on the part of guests you aren’t yet acquainted with. It was a little shot of pea and asparagus soup with a lemon foam on top. The peas lent plenty of sweetness to the soup and the lemon scent cut through this beautifully. The asparagus didn’t play more than a cameo.

When my starter was served, I was rapt. The pig’s head croquette was crisp on the outside and packed with a confit of tender pork that was quite restrained when it came to seasoning. This was served on top of three ways to apple – braised, pureed and fresh – and the combination was exquisite. Textures, flavours and temperatures danced a merry jig that filled me with joy.

I peeked with mild interest around me, disappointed that the better half had ordered a Parma ham-based starter. I try not to give my palate hard work before my main course. To each her own.

The Confessor had picked the terrine of duck and foie gras and I was lucky to be granted a bite the size of a raw grain of rice for sampling purposes. It was also a very accomplished dish.

For main course, I’d picked the Black Angus rib-eye, purely because I don’t normally risk a Bearnaise unless the kitchen looks like it knows what it’s doing. The Bearnaise was excellent but the rib-eye had been cooked all the way to medium. Accompanying the meat was a flat mushroom, a veggie brochette and a towering structure of pomme fondant, making for a complete and well-presented dish. I ate half the rib-eye because I’d struck a deal to share it with the rack of Irish lamb the better half ordered.

It was served with two generous slices of an overly refined gratin Dauphinois and had been cooked through. It had been so enthusiastically oven-finished that I managed a couple of bites and then tucked into the gratin.

Desserts sounded very tempting and we took the wise decision to lead ourselves into temptation. The deconstructed lemon meringue was a playful take on the old favourite, with the components very imaginatively served separately, so we were treated to lemon curd, meringue, vanilla shortbread, lime jelly, raspberry ice cream and popping candy. The Confessor made short work of his Grand Marnier crème brûlée, atop which sat a ball of orange and rosemary sorbet.

The main course was a disappointing blemish on what was otherwise a good show from the kitchen, good enough for me to dismiss the disappointment as a bad night.

We paid €60 each and headed back to the cars, hearing more about the mischief The Confessor was up to when he inhabited those four walls. In the car I tried to recall my experience in snapshots.

My starter. My dessert. Great company. My starter again. It was a great night after all.

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