Ed eats

La Vecchia Taranta
St Paul Street
Valletta
Tel 2122 1783

Food: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Food snobbery is nothing more than an obstacle. It is a barrier that keeps happiness at bay. It is the self-imposed denial of true comfort in favour of arbitrarily defined, socially acceptable grub. I naturally love eating well and will go to any lengths to eat exceptional food. I just refuse to let this prevent me from eating comforting and simple food, even if this is frowned upon.

A proper food snob will most likely avoid street food unless some hipster posted an achingly contrived faux-vieux shot on their Tumblr. Nothing makes food we’ve never heard of as desirable as Instagram does. Now the likelihood of a McD cheeseburger ending up on Instagram is low, so the likelihood of a food snob eating one is just as low.

The same applies to the Bavarian sausage inside one of those divine hotdogs from ze German guys in Sliema. I’m not prepared to let ‘Instagramlessness’ (word of the day, right there) keep this sort of food at bay. If it is any time between lunch and dinner and I’m out and about, I’ll eat anything that will taste good and is en route.

Offal, for instance, has a very low sex appeal. It doesn’t look good in pictures. It can smell funny while being cooked. Words like ‘pancreas’, ‘thymus’ and ‘lung’ sound like they belong in the medical section of Quiz Up rather than a cookbook that only Phaidon will publish.

Try keeping me away from a panino con la milza, even if I’m on my way to lunch. It’s a pity that the only place that served a proper one of these delights went out of business a few months ago. We have food snobs to thank for that.

Then there is pizza. It is, in many ways, the perfect meal. Depending on the toppings, it contains carbohydrate, protein, fibre and fat. Those are the four food groups you need to put together for a complete and nutritious meal. Add flavour, warmth and comfort and you have it all. I think that if I knew I had just one more meal to enjoy, I would choose pizza.

This is not a hasty decision. I have planned for this eventuality very carefully. Given an impending apocalypse, the last thing I want is indecision about what to eat before the asteroid strikes the earth, destroying humanity and, effectively, saving the planet from our destructive forces. So I thought about this at length and figured that I’d eat pizza, because the last meal should eliminate risk and deliver the triad of flavour, warmth and comfort I mentioned earlier.

In no way am I implying that this is everyone’s perfect apocalypse food. If you have a sweet tooth, I suppose you should pick your favourite dessert and eat as much of it as you can, knowing weight or disease aren’t a factor in the afterlife. If you like to drink, then make your last meal a liquid one. A ridiculously expensive wine, for instance, would be the way to go. Being a little drunk makes a spot of the old planetary destruction all the more bearable.

The place is tiny and the seats limited so it might be an idea to try this place out before it fills up

Back to pizza though. A member of my little network of unofficial informers has decided to take up residence in Valletta recently and tipped me off about a small pizzeria in St Paul Street. The place is just across the road from the church of St Paul, so I couldn’t miss it. There are two flags outside, he went on to tell me, a Maltese flag and an Italian one. With all these details I suspected that when he said a ‘small’ pizzeria, he could easily have meant ‘tiny’. He did say he rather enjoyed the pizza and he’s normally quite reticent with compliments so I was hopeful.

So off to Valletta I went, in search of a promising pizza. Finding the place was easy thanks to the instructions and the flags. The restaurant is tiny. Downstairs is occupied by the preparation area and the pizza oven. The man at the counter is Italian and greeted us in his language, asking if we were after a takeout or if we preferred to eat there. Wanting the full experience, we were invited to take a seat upstairs so up the spiral staircase we climbed.

There are four tables upstairs, seating a total of around a dozen people. We were the only ones there that night so we had the luxury of choice. There is one table that was next to an open window on to the street. Two little candles flickered on the windowsill. The setting seemed charming enough.

We were given menus that consist of a single sheet of pizzas. One side is in Italian and the other is in English. There are 23 pizzas to choose from and that’s about it. With this kind of focus, the pizza should be at least decent.

I read through and settled on the very last one. I was after a full-blown, full-flavoured meal. I wanted an army flying the savoury flag to march all the way to my eager stomach. This promised spicy sausage, pancetta, Parmesan cheese shavings and rucola on top of the tomato sauce and mozzarella that most other pizzas offered.

The better half was after something very different. The Caprese consists simply of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. We’d get to sample both ends of the spectrum then.

When our man returned to take our orders I said I’d chosen already but would like to know what he’d recommend since he was the man in charge of preparing the food. He said, with admirable pride, that all pizzas would be a good choice and that most tend to choose one of the last three on the list. Reassured, I ordered my original choice that goes by the name of Cristina.

I also asked, with a little doubt, whether they served wine. He said they served one house wine and returned with a bottle of Negroamaro from Salento. He must be truly proud of Puglia. I’d only tried this varietal once before so I was up for another try. We added a bottle of water and settled in to wait for our pizza.

Within five minutes the smell that wafted up from the kitchen beneath our feet was heavenly. I could have climbed the divine vapour all the way up to paradise but every step would take me further from the pizza, so I stayed firmly planted.

Two minutes later we were served by the ever-smiling, ever-pleasant chef. The size looked right and the presentation quite delightful, so in I dug. The base is thin, practically as thin as the Neapolitan pizza, even if a little more firm. It held the ingredients valiantly and is easy to consume with a knife and fork. I’m that way inclined and I know this is weird where eating pizza is concerned, at least by popular standards. However, if a pizza can stand up to this, it will be a joy to seize by the crust and devour the way normal people eat pizza.

As predicted, the flavour is intense. I’d asked the chef to go easy on the rucola. I’m not a fan of this weed but I didn’t want to upset the balance he’d designed, and he said he’d just add a little. He picked the right amount of the tiniest leaves so balance was retained. This was a serious pizza. The new Valletta native was right.

I sipped my wine and downed my water in an attempt to restore my palate to form before trying the vastly less complex Caprese. It is a very delicate pizza, fragrant with a hint of fresh basil and very, very mature.

This pizza curls up in the windowsill, preens itself and defies you to pet it. I almost felt a tinge of envy when I returned to mine.

The total for both pizzas was under €20 and the drinks matched this, doubling the final bill. A house wine is a little steep at €17.50, even if it was perfectly acceptable as a wine. Just stick to the pizza though, and you’ll be quite happy to know that not one of these treats hits the €10 barrier.

The place is tiny and the seats limited, so it might be an idea to try this place out before it fills up. And unless you live in Valletta, you don’t want to commit the crime of ferrying this pizza home in a cardboard box.

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