Pet’s Plates

Pintonino
Vault 15, Valletta Waterfront,
Valletta
Tel: 2122 7773

Food: 7/10
Location: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Sunday lunch at Valletta Waterfront is never a quiet affair. You will have to fight your way through the crowds before finally reaching your intended restaurant. Four of us were out to lunch at Pintonino, a restaurant fittingly named in honour of Manuel Pinto de Fonseca.

De Fonseca was the rather unpopular, but enterprising, Portuguese Grand Master who commissioned the construction of the large wharf buildings at Valletta Waterfront. In so doing, he reinforced the entire area as a hub of trade and commerce.

Construction of the imposing storehouses was completed in 1752 for the purpose of housing wine, wheat, fish and produce in these enormous Baroque warehouses that give the Grand Harbour waterfront its majestic facade. Grand Master Pinto’s architectural legacy lives on though the concentration of restaurants, bars and shops that have totally transformed the area and breathed new life into the dilapidated Pinto Wharf.

Why must standards of food and standards of cooking vary so much within the same restaurant and within the very same meal?

Pintonino’s main door is painted blue, which should signify that fish used to be stored in this vault back in the 18th century. Most of our table had actually sat down with a fish meal in mind. Pintonino serves Mediterranean cuisine and thus provides the traditional Mediterranean menu that we are all so familiar with in Malta. There’s a good balance between fish, meat and vegetarian dishes.

My starter was meant to be one of the day’s specials – linguine topped with three freshly-caught Maltese red prawns. I was, instead served the Gamberi e Zucchine linguine found on the menu. And it was not good. Comprising of peeled prawns tossed with finely sliced marrows, tomatoes and white wine, I decided not to point out the mistake. Surely this had to be an equally good pasta.

Unfortunately, it was very poor, entirely insipid and with a sauce that felt extremely watered down and left a puddle on the plate. Spaghetti with sea urchins is regarded by many as seafood heaven on a plate. Sea urchins are considered a delicacy and, with their unique flavour, this should have made for a divine pasta dish. My friend ordered it and it was actually even worse than mine – completely bland and with the same watered down sauce as the linguine. Both pasta dishes were hardly touched.

On the other hand, the remaining starters were better by a long shot, so much better in fact that one could easily be fooled into thinking that they were the work of an entirely different kitchen. The deep-fried calamari rings were alluringly crunchy, the squid meat was tender and the batter was crisp and light. The luckiest person at our table had chosen a Southern Italian classic, Risotto al Nero di Seppia. It was exceptional in its velvety, dark, dense glory with strong flavours that captured the essence of the sea.

From humble origins, this dish has risen through the ranks and is now considered a prized recipe. The unhappy sea urchin lover and I swooned. It was the best nero di seppia dish I had tasted in a while.

I was delighted to find that Pintonino only serves freshly caught line fish and that none of their fish originated from a fish farm. We were, however, informed that there would be a wait if we decided to order certain fish. The waiting staff kept their promise and we waited a while. The sunny, spacious restaurant interior was comfortable to sit in and table banter was far from tedious. I would have had no problem waiting, had I finished my starter.

At length, the main course arrived. I couldn’t resist ordering the John Dory or the Pesce San Pietro – possibly one of the ugliest, oddest looking fish out there, but one which I consider to be among the most exquisite. A fish of delicate, firm white flesh with a mild, slightly sweet flavour, ours had been expertly filleted (not an easy task with this unusually-shaped fish), but had unfortunately been slightly overcooked.

Nevertheless, this did not detract from the fish’s deliciousness. The nicely-cooked sides of crunchy roast potatoes and steamed mixed vegetables made a lovely addition to the dish. The beef tenderloin with mushroom sauce comprised a good quality Black Angus fillet which was cooked to order and cooked well. Sadly, the entire dish was cheapened by the mushroom sauce (supposedly a melange of Brandy, cream, French mustard and butter) which contained very few mushrooms and tasted very artificial, as if mixed from a packet. The ċippullazza (scorpion fish) was quite excellent, tasty and with a lovely moist, milky texture. It was cooked to perfection and tasted even better than the John Dory. Portions were generous.

As much as the spaghetti and linguine dishes comprised the Achilles heel of the meal, the ċippullazza and the risotto were the star dishes. We drank Gavi and the meal passed pretty pleasantly, leaving no room for dessert. But something was nagging at me... Why must standards of food and standards of cooking vary so much within the same restaurant and within the very same meal? How can one pasta dish have you cooing in delight whilst another is quite unsavoury? It is puzzling and beyond exasperating. Although the John Dory was good, a disappointing starter still means a disappointing start to a meal. And it is a disappointment that lingers.

In situations such as these, it feels as if the restaurant kitchen is taunting you. With certain dishes, the chefs prove to you that they are very much capable of cooking, while inexplicably allowing other dishes of an inferior standard out of their kitchen. I could never allow myself to review a restaurant based on the sampling of just one dish. However, were I to have simply ordered nothing but a plate of sea urchin pasta and been served the unpalatable example provided the day I was there, I would have definitely left feeling that this is a restaurant quite incapable of churning out even the simplest of seafood dishes. And that would be quite unfair and a gross misrepresentation of this restaurant’s abilities. Pintonino is a popular restaurant with a very good reputation. Nonetheless, this shows how very hard it can be to get it right in a busy restaurant kitchen every single time... numerous factors and hands go into the production of a single dish.

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