One year after a kiosk cooked up a storm for selling hot dogs and kebabs in De Valette Square, another stall has been sighted in the exact same spot – only this time, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Expertly designed to mimic an iconic Maltese gallarija or closed balcony, the stall was set up for carnival celebrations in Valletta, selling homemade local sweets such as prinjolata, perlini and xkumvat, as well as traditional Maltese coffee with anisette and cloves.

“We wanted to come up with an attractive way of presenting and selling our sweets that was also artisanal and related to Maltese character and tradition,” Mark Camilleri, who built and operates the stall, told the Times of Malta.

“Valletta is full of balconies and baroque architecture, so we thought this design would be the best way to complement the surrounding area and the sweets we sell.”

Mr Camilleri, owner of Dxquisite Pasticceria, previously worked at the dockyards before deciding to devote himself to catering eight years ago, as the dockyards headed towards privatisation.

Carnival, however, was the first outing for his new stall, which cost €16,000 to build. Mr Camilleri went to great lengths to ensure it had an authentic look and feel, with Maltese patterned tiles and lace curtains inside, and potted plants on the outside – hearkening back to another old tradition.

“Today flower pots are just decorative, but in the past, putting flowers on your balcony was a way of indicating to bachelors that there was a young woman in the household who was ready for marriage,” he said. The stall is not a permanent addition to the square but its attractive design and placement also recalled the debate over the proposed relocation of the Merchants Street monti to nearby Ordnance Street.

The traditional sweet stall in De Valette Square.

The government’s first design for the hawkers’ stalls, a metal frame fronted with white marine plywood and a red embossed eight-pointed cross motif, was greeted with a chorus of disapproval when it was put forward and built in January 2015, prompting its withdrawal.

A subsequent call for expressions of interest to redesign the stalls received 50 submissions in less than 24 hours. Interestingly, an earlier conceptual design – created by designer Carlo Schembri two years earlier – also took its cue from iconic Maltese architecture: in that case, the traditional wooden gabbana.

Mr Camilleri said he was uncertain whether a design like his own would be suitable for the monti, but that it would work perfectly for a semi-permanent artisanal market of the sort found in many European cities, selling crafted art pieces and culinary goods.

“We have a strong national culture and artisanal tradition that should be celebrated,” he said. “There are a lot of open spaces in Valletta that could easily host something like that.”

Although the gallarija stall has now moved on after carnival, Mr Camilleri hopes to one day find a place to set it up more permanently.

In the meantime, he said, he plans on bringing it back for other public festivities – along with new traditional goodies specific to the season.