Ed eats

The Harbour Club
4/5 Barriera Wharf
Valletta
Tel: 2122 2332

Food: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 9/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10

When asked to pick the best restaurant, I groan in response. It has become a well-practised sound. It starts with a meaningful inhalation, preparing the one asking the question for an onslaught, and goes on to a simultaneous exhalation and groan. I need more information. My favourite places do not necessarily coincide with what you or anyone else considers the best.

It is like choosing what I like to call the desert island album. The premise is that you are being airlifted on to a desert island for an indefinite amount of time and you have the option of taking a single album with you. This album will have to be one you’ll never tire of – one that has the ability to surprise you and delight you and entertain you every time you listen to it. I would pick Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and I’m pretty sure that this coincides with very few other desert island choices.

The fact that anyone would choose an album that’s more meaningful, more accomplished, more transcendent to them than my favourite is hardly surprising.

Music, like food, is largely subjective and almost always dependent on context. I wouldn’t expect to listen to Kind of Blue at a Rolling Stones concert. I’d actually be quite annoyed if that happened because I’m the kind of fool who is too embarrassed to ask for a refund.

This week I sat at table at a restaurant and, without even having the menu in hand yet, found myself toying with the word ‘perfect’. That’s because it was just perfect for what I felt like that evening. I figured that even if the food were below standard, I’d still manage to enjoy the evening. If the food turned out to be astounding, I could easily have stumbled across one kind of perfect.

I sat inside a room that was converted into a pretty little dining area without even resorting to gypsum, white paint and too many halogens. A beautiful, arched ceiling was unadorned, lighting was dim and restricted to pendant lighting that was as close to our table as is sensible.

A very tasteful selection of jazz played in the background at a reasonable volume. My right arm was almost in contact with a large window that was half a dozen metres from the Grand Harbour. A golden glow was all that was left of sunset and it gently bathed the Three Cities.

We’d been greeted by a lady who, in a few short minutes, revealed that she’d fully embraced the fine art of front-of-house service. She balanced efficiency with a calm demeanour, was polite without ever being too familiar, quickly picked up on language preference and was present every time we needed her. We were the first table there that night and the level of service was sustained even as the place filled to capacity.

So as we mulled over menus and placed orders, the word perfect recurred.

The menus were also quite a pleasant surprise. They are relatively restricted to what a chef can reasonably prepare during service without resorting to too many tricks of the trade and consist of half a dozen starters and the same number of main courses. Each dish is an interesting take on traditional ingredients.

There are a number of contexts where the word perfect would be a very tempting one to use

I then pieced together the difficulty I’d had to actually visit The Harbour Club. I’d turned up twice, unannounced, and was sent to find alternate sources of food because the restaurant was packed.

I’d even tried calling to place a reservation for a Sunday and they were closed. Finally I got round to placing a reservation for a Monday night and we snagged the last table for two. They’re clearly doing something quite right, so just turning up and hoping for the best had been a foolish thing to do.

Fresh bread and butter were excellent and I had to stop myself from devouring the little basket seeing I had two courses to contend with. We sipped a mid-range bottle of Ripassa while we waited, taking in the view and the charming atmosphere of what could have been a seaside bistro anywhere on the continent. The terrace that is normally heaving in summer doesn’t seem like an option at this time of year, yet I pictured it to be quite a lovely place to dine, too.

Our starters were served after a perfectly reasonable wait. I’d picked the cannelloni with braised beef shin and braised truffle shavings. Three cannelloni were served, simply arranged side by side, and each one was filled with a lovely slow-cooked shin that was beautifully seasoned. It overpowered the truffle though so there was barely a hint of the wonderful fungus. I wasn’t about to complain though and thoroughly enjoyed the dish.

Across the table there was silence as the parsley root soup with crisp guanciale bits was being consumed in a slow and deliberate way. I nicked a spoonful and understood the silence. I felt a wave of what I call ‘starter envy’. This is the feeling one gets when realising that the starter across the table was a more pleasing option. I discern separate categories of envy – at least one per course – and they’re all quite unique.

Once again we had a respectable wait to put up with until our main courses were presented. Each dish had been very thoughtfully composed, so the result scores high on visual appeal. My veal rump, described as pan-fried and milk-fed, had been both over-described and overcooked. I had asked for it to be served rare and this was done just past medium. I gave it a shot, however, and, although it had lost much of its tenderness, had retained just enough juices to keep it quite palatable. There was mastery on the dish though. Jerusalem artichokes had been turned into a delightful purée, into sinful little crisps, and also into an excellent replacement for roast potato.

The grilled sirloin was, once again, possibly a better choice. The baby pok choi and the fries that were served with it were excellent and the grilled meat was decent but not exceptional. It had been beautifully charred on the outside and cooked rare, as requested. Simply seasoned, the lean meat without its accompanying strip of fat needed all the help it could get from the red wine reduction it was served with.

We were gently tempted to dessert but I couldn’t eat any more, so we asked for the bill and sipped our remaining wine. Now that the restaurant included a large table celebrating a special day, I was happy to put an end to the chapter and, paying the bill for €90, walked out feeling quite pleased. The Harbour Club is one of those restaurants I enjoy best either very early in the evening when I get the restaurant to myself or when risking a late service.

I suppose I could complain that food wasn’t perfect and all that jazz but what matters is that we’d had a very positive experience. I wouldn’t go so far as calling it perfect. Yet there are a number of contexts where that word would be a very tempting one to use.

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