Pet’s plates

The Galley
Ta’ Xbiex Marina,
Ta’ Xbiex.
+356 2131 8801

Food: 5/10
Location: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Value for money: 5/10
Overall: 6/10

A quiet catch up with a friend before the mad countdown to Christmas, but where to eat well while making the most of the beautiful December weather?

After driving around quite aimlessly, we parked in Ta’ Xbiex and ended up at The Galley restaurant, adjacent to the Royal Malta Yacht Club. A nautical theme features strongly throughout the establishment.

Given the distressed wood, the use of rope and a crisp white, clean finish, you could easily be mistaken into thinking that you’ve been transported to a cottage in the Hamptons – only you’re not looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean. The view is far more superior.

When sitting at The Galley you are essentially in the heart of Marsamxett Harbour, with Manoel Island to your left and facing Valletta’s imposing bastions. In that light, even the Hotel Excelsior’s sprawling body seemed to (almost) blend into its surroundings, flanking the fortifications.

At The Galley, you can choose to sit indoors or outdoors in good weather and, as pleasant and cosy as it looked inside, we needed a splash of sunshine and sea air and settled down very happily outside.

The entire staff were immediately attentive and friendly. I didn’t spot one disgruntled waiter throughout our lunch, which is quite a feat.

The menu was brought over almost instantly and provided an interesting read. It was mainly Mediterranean-inspired and spiced up with a few Lebanese influences.

It was also concise with a nice balance between meat and fish-based dishes and offering light, snack sort of meals for those wanting a healthy or small lunch. Not me. There were no specials for the day, but fresh fish was available.

The location and the atmosphere were truly fantastic. I was loving my lunchtime escape into the sunshine, soaking up every ray of warm winter sun and taking in the breathtaking view – that is, until our food was served.

Each course was a steady and solid degeneration, with each new leg of the meal delivering worse food than the preceding one. One first, sad mouthful and all the magic fizzled away fast. For starters we shared the lamb kofta, which was grossly underseasoned and, in places, undercooked. All I could taste was chewy, semi-raw protein.

Each course was a steady and solid degeneration

The bland koftas were accompanied by the smallest amount of tahini sauce, so small that it was barely there. The plate had been smeared with the slightest of ‘artistic’ swoops of it.

We soon realised it was for the best. Perhaps the chef had wanted to spare us. The tahini was nothing more than a runny liquid that only tasted of oil and lemon. Any trace of a sesame seed had been watered out of the sauce.

I ended up simply nibbling on some grilled pita bread. We had been promised some fresh bread from the moment we sat down. We waited over 20 minutes for it to arrive, at which point the shared starter had already been served. But, seeing that we had been left without a decent first course, I was thankful for its presence and tucked into some warm bread rolls and salted butter.

We weren’t kept waiting long for the main course. My breaded pork escalope consisted of a generous portion – and that is where the positives end. There was sadly nothing more to like. The pork chops were overcooked and gummy and, in places, impossibly tough to cut. The batter had been slightly burnt and no amount of fresh lemon squeezes and shakings of salt could resuscitate it to a palatable level.

Sage and pork is usually a heavenly combination. My chops were topped with the strongly aromatic herb but it was barely recognisable. Having been fried to a tasteless crisp, it imparted no flavour whatsoever.

My friend had ordered the red snapper. She teased me about my dish, as I wedged my cutlery into the dry pork, until she realised that her fish had been grilled to death. A waitress had whisked the snapper away to clean and descale it but had done so very badly, so a lot of lunch was spent sifting in irritation through the many bones and scales left behind.

My friend was not pleased, apart from the fact that this was an exercise in futility, since the overcooked fish did not taste that great to begin with; its firm, mild-tasting flesh had been reduced to a rubbery texture.

We each had a little bowl of salad and some chips to accompany the meal. There was no dressing on the salad; it was literally a heap of washed greens. They’d have done us and themselves a favour had they not served up any chips – soft, limp things that looked like they had been trodden upon. They were awful and quite inedible.

At least, there was the bottle of Chablis to keep us merry and bright and we managed to laugh our way through the dismal lunch. We ordered dessert. What possessed us, I don’t know. Why did we bother? We knew it couldn’t possibly be great after the low standard of food we had been served up till then.

The kitchen did not even attempt to disguise the fact that the desserts had very obviously been made in advance. They arrived within a couple of short minutes and tasted awfully artificial. My vanilla cheesecake had a biscuit base that resembled a clump of sawdust and contained about as much flavour. It was literally a crushed biscuit with a sickening cream cheese topping that didn’t even possess a hint of sweetness.

The triple chocolate mousse with layers of milk, dark and white chocolate was (ever so) slightly more pleasing to the palate compared to the cheesecake, which isn’t saying much.

The chef patron prides himself on having a successful catering business called Fifth Flavour. I found this information somewhat shocking seeing that the entire lunch had crashed and burned before our eyes. Forget about the much desired fifth flavour we all crave, the food at The Galley had sorely lacked any true flavour at all!

The staff and the delightful location of the place are the establishment’s only two assets. But these alone cannot make a restaurant. I’d have much rather eaten at one of the Ta’ Xbiex boathouses converted into casual restaurants, than be seated before a grand view with nothing decent on my plate. I left The Galley hungry, having dined on a meal that had consisted almost entirely of bread and the salad that accompanied my meat.

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