Whenever and wherever (not just in Malta) I avail myself of fine dining, once the preserve of the well off, I notice a direct correlation between the size of the bill and the size of the plate.
It seems that the smaller the plate, the bigger the bill. While, in most cases, each meal is beautifully prepared and presented, on arriving back home I usually have the need to find something in the refrigerator to snack on to help ward off night starvation.