The entrance to the priory with the ominous Clausura sign.

Ed eats

Theos
The Carmelite Priory
Triq il-Villegaignon,
Mdina
Tel 2145 0978

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

Now that Russia has decided to celebrate the centenary of the Great War in its own unique way, I got back to thinking about our early introduction to political literature and how useful this was to us. As acne-ridden teens we struggled to disentangle George Orwell’s political message from a story that largely dealt with talking farm animals.

The intricacies of Russian politics weren’t as relevant to us as, say, the latest escapades of Starsky and Hutch. Yet there we sat, a relatively homogenous bunch of boys fuelled by testosterone, greasy canteen meat pies, soft drinks in glass bottles and a handful of Italian TV stations to borrow wisdom from.

Would it have not been more useful to make it very clear that we were all fundamentally different and that, as we grew older, life experience would only drive those differences deeper?

To this day, I still make the mistake of assuming that people around me have similar preferences in most respects. If that were so, this newspaper would only contain the travel and food section. I’ve never bothered with the sports pages because there is nothing there that interests me, yet I’d be foolish to say there is no need for them at all because it is diversity that makes life interesting. To bowdlerise a Maltese expression, there is little left of the pig after the sausage-maker has had a go.

I had a conversation at the office that drove this point home. It turns out that not everyone shares my passion for food. I know this is self-evident, but we’re much more used to being given the impression that pretty much everyone does the same thing. The girl I was speaking to said that she eats two cubes of chocolate every week. That’s two tiny blocks out of a large bar in a seven-day span. She also claims to be a chocolate lover. Just one to whom calorific intake is more fundamentally important than responding to every whim of her olfactory. Just how disp-arate can people’s position on food become?

Speaking to a friend of mine from Cyprus would have me think that Turkey could easily be a country on another planet, such is their grudge about the occupied part of the island. I’ve often pointed out that he eats pretty much the same food, and it is not without a huff that he eventually agrees. Food can be as unifying as it has the ability to be divisive.

I recently heard that Turkish and Greek food was finally being properly represented at a restaurant in Mdina, and this little promise of harmony tempted me no end.

When I finally got round to visiting, the meal turned into a group of 10 who, surprisingly, love food as much as I do. The location took me by surprise.

The Carmelite Priory is a beautifully preserved part of our history in itself and is well worth a visit during the day. So as you can imagine, there is no brightly lit sign affixed to its exterior saying ‘Theos’. They’ve opted, instead, for a very discreet free-standing sign that you must look out for unless you know the building. Peeking just past the sign from the street, you can see the entrance to the priory itself, with an ominous Clausura sign above the inner door. You’ll automatically lower your voices.

I was used to the quaint little coffee shop inside the Carmelite Priory and wondered how the location could possibly have been turned into a proper restaurant.

The beautifully frescoed ceilings are thankfully still there. The thick-walled, interconnecting rooms now host tables and chairs in a pleasantly informal setting that is more restaurant than cafe, although the lunchtime menus that were available at the bar indicate a less formal and more Maltese offering when the Silent City is bustling with tourists.

The only disappointment turned out to be the desserts

The menus are a work in progress and they offer quite a broad selection of the safer foods from just east of our island. Somehow, to Greek and Turkish food, there has been the unlikely addition of Calabrian. I’m sure there’s a reason for the link.

Wine menus looked eerily familiar in structure. Wines are priced at supermarket prices and there is a fiver added on top as a fee for serving it. This approach makes the more expensive wines very attractive. We ordered a couple of bottles of a Chianti Riserva and, when one made it to the table, were told that they’d be rushing over to Sharma to pick up another. That’s why the wine menu is familiar. The same people who gave us Sharma have added two cuisines to Mdina’s offering, turning it into the most culturally diverse town in Malta, if one were to factor in the diminutive size of the magnificent walled city.

To start with, we all wanted to try the Greek dips and we all wanted to try different ones. We ended up ordering all seven. Each item has a little note at the end to denote provenance. Some say ‘Greece’, some say ‘Turkey’ and many say ‘Greece/Turkey’.

From Turkey we picked a dip of marinated chicken breast and walnuts as well as one with beans, onions and garlic. The Greek Taramosalata (fish roes), Melitzanosalata (aubergine), Tzatziki (yoghurt) and Tyrokafteri (feta and chilli).

The last dip was a pesto Calabreses, an aubergine, ricotta, tomato and chilli dip. Just in case this wouldn’t suffice we added Dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) and the unpronounceable Kolokythokeftedes – little fried zucchini dumplings. Interestingly, what I call Dolmades were actually Yaprak Dolma from Turkey, a variation on the theme of stuffed vine leaves that extend from Greece, into Turkey, and all the way around the North African coast to Morocco.

The plan was to share all these around the table and order individual main courses. We were ably assisted by the man who was running the show that night, and his knowledge of the menu helped us with the less familiar items. He also helped make the whole group experience a more pleasant one by letting us know how much to order and even putting half portions together to make sure we all sample one of the Dolmas each.

Starters were served quite quickly and we had food all around the table within minutes, sharing dips around and making sure we all tried everything. This system is ideal for a group because it is inherently convivial, especially when there are so many opinions from people who just love eating for the sake of it. The quality was consistently high and, while there were discussions about personal preferences, there was a very satisfied table of 10 by the time we were done.

Main courses were a bit of a mixed bag. Those who had ordered Gyros – a ‘vertical grill’ pork neck – were slightly surprised that it looked a little like doner or shawarma. Well, what did you think vertical grill meant? And we also allowed the Greeks to steal the word ‘gyro’ from us because they didn’t have a word for ‘rotate’.

There is, however, a dramatic difference in the quality of the meat and the process. The initial disappointment over having unwittingly ordered kebab, turned into even deeper disappointment when we all insisted on sampling this lovely meat. Much more clever were those who had ordered the lamb chops, a staple in Greece and Turkey, because they refused to allow anyone to sample their food. I nicked some and it was excellent. There were also two slow-cooked lamb dishes, one served the Greek way with little pasta and the other on a mash of aubergine and baby potato. While very satisfying, these were somehow less popular than the grilled dishes.

The only disappointment turned out to be the desserts. We tried Halvasi, a butter cake with almonds and vanilla ice cream, and Lukumas that are little doughnuts served with chocolate. Neither was particularly inspiring.

We wound up paying €30 each for what turned out to be a substantial quantity of interesting, occasionally unusual food of a very acceptable quality. I found the cuisine to be a little at odds with the location, mainly because I associate this food with loud nights of tomfoolery and one ought to respect the venue more than allowing the evening to degenerate sufficiently. We were there for the food and the company however, and everyone at table that night seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed both.

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