Ed Eats

Wood and Coal
Triq iż-Żgħafran
Attard
Tel: 7957 0073

Food: 6/10  
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 6.5/10

Here’s an Instagram-worthy aphorism for you: Life is filled with choices that other people make for us. All you need to do is find a terrible script font and write that over a sunset picture you stole from someone else’s account.

You may cringe. I cringe and I just had to type that out. But that’s the thing about clichés – they start somewhere as a perfectly valid observation. Take this week’s elections in the US. Not everyone wants a psychopath at the helm, but a choice that could affect us all has been made, even if we are powerless to have any control over the outcome.

While we mostly want choice and demand even more choice than we can reasonably handle, there’s a limit to the number of options we’d really care to handle. I’m sure you’ve been to a restaurant that has pages upon pages of menu. You leaf through, wondering how much freezer space they must have in the kitchen, and try to make the choice that will harm you the least. If there had only been ten items on the menu you’d have stood a fighting chance.

So, as much as we think we love choice, as much as we fight for our right to choose, it can be quite exhausting. And this is why we put up with such a widespread illusion of choice. I can think of at least fifty restaurants that appear to be different, that strive to be different, that act like they’re different, and that are a name away from being identical.

Of course, they have observed a formula that works and copied it, vowing to change it a little and improve on it. Then, as time passes and market forces happen to them, they end up steering their galley in the same direction as all the others. And the market forces I refer to are, quite simply, our refusal to contend with too much choice or novelty.

I was speaking to a chef a few months ago. He changed the pizza menu at the restaurant he was running and removed all the classics, putting his energy and creativity to work for him and developing a whole new set of pizzas. Within six weeks he’d replaced half of his creative offspring with a Capricciosa, a Funghi, and a Quattro Stagioni, because his clients were up in arms. So much for our cries of boredom and lack of choice.

I recently heard about a couple of new pizzas at this place in Attard. The location sounded tempting. It is central, parking is really easy in the area, and I could do with a new take on an old favourite. I wondered how different the pizzas could be and wandered in to take a closer look.

The base is crisp and dry and held all the ingredients together as if by magic

It was a weekday and we were there quite early so I imagined we’d be the only patrons but there were a couple of tables that were already occupied and, by the time we were done and ready to leave, there was hardly an empty seat in the house. They’re onto something that Attard must have been lacking.

The dining area is large and formed of a single, continuous space so it feels a bit like a canteen. There’s effective use of natural wood, custom furniture, and filament lamps inside mason jars so it’s been ‘designed’ and the result looks good enough, even if I’d redo the lighting to have a dimmer overall intensity with more functional light on the tables to help promote a more intimate dining experience. I’d also do away with the cheesy music that belongs to a lift in the eighties but I’m picky that way.

The man who saw us when we walked in didn’t quite greet us. He looked worried and waved to us to wait for someone to take care of us. Seconds later, a very pleasant young lady skipped our way and led us to a table. She saw to us during most of the evening and was cheerfully helpful throughout.

The menus include pizza, salads, burgers, and a decent selection of steaks. The restaurant is a pizzeria and steakhouse combo so this is hardly surprising. Throughout, there are options for lactose free and gluten free items so everyone’s quite thoughtfully catered for.

As tempted as I was by the list of steaks I was here for the pizza and had my heart set on one of the pizzas from the gourmet section. The first set of pizzas are the classics and these cover the bases of those who are not, after all, up for a surprise. The gourmet section includes a strange take on the carbonara. Guanciale has been swapped for pancetta, pecorino swapped for parmesan, egg yolk is demonized and they’re adding parsley. In the name of whatever food God you revere, please call it something else.

The man who was busy running the front of house and the kitchen came to take our orders. The spinach on the pizza Fiorentina that I’d set my eyes on hadn’t made it to Malta by ferry because of the bad weather. I half joked about the vegetable market at the Pitkali being close enough to easily obtain fresh produce, but this didn’t go as I’d expected so I quickly swapped for the Pizza Bologna and said nothing more.

The better half was keen on the mushroom burger and, being hungry enough to eat a horse, I ordered a dish of fried prawn and squid to start with. We added a bottle of Côtes du Rhône to our order and engaged in a lively debate about the environmental impact of shipping ingredients from overseas when they can quite easily grow within the same postcode.

The starter dish was served quickly and even better than I’d expected. The squid and shrimp were in a crisp and dry batter that had preserved much of the flavour of the sea-dwellers and served with a slightly spicy mayo on the side.

Our main course was also served within a perfectly acceptable time. The burger contained Portobello mushrooms, salad from a bag, warm Brie, a berry sauce, and an overcooked beef patty that is, by my burger standards, a little too lean. The combination of ingredients really worked and we were a good patty away from a great burger.

My pizza was as unexpected as I’d expected it to be. I normally opt for simplicity but was intrigued by the combination that the Bologna promised. Mozzarella, mortadella, pesto di pistacchio, and burrata are not quite the usual suspects but they all happen to be ingredients I like and made for an unusually indulgent treat. The base is crisp and dry and held all the ingredients together as if by magic. Thoughtfully, ingredients like the burrata are added after the rest has been treated to a high temperature so it retains its buttery goodness.

We sat and slowly finished our bottle of wine as the restaurant kept filling with hungry patrons, and there were pleased faces all around us. The price is pretty decent. We wound up spending just under €60 but if you do away with the starter and put the price of the wine into the balance, you’re looking at an easy €15 for a pizza and a drink. Which by local standards has somehow become quite normal.

Wood and coal seems to provide just the right amount of choice. There’s steak and pizza under one, conveniently located, roof. There’s plenty for those intolerant to lactose or gluten (or both if you’re unlucky) to choose from. And if you’re into 1980s music, well, you have little choice there. More importantly, however, is the choice we get with the pizza menu. With the availability of standard pizzas and the not-so-standard whimsical ones the chef has dreamt up, I have hope that more of us will stray from our comfort zone and actually make use of the options we have available. And this will encourage the chef to stray even further from the usual stuff rather than force their hands towards the classics.