Bella Vita al Mare
Triq il-Menqa
Marsalforn
Tel: 2156 9403
Food: 7/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
Back in the 1960s, life was simpler and more confused. If you knew what do with this paradox, you made a lot of money. In the US, for instance, three ads on prime time TV could reach 80 per cent of the American public. It was a very simple way of targeting a very confused audience. So if you had enough money to create a TV spot and air it three times, you were guaranteed that your product would fly off the shelves.
This created what was known as the advertising-industrial complex. One paid for some ads and made money. Then you took that money and paid for even more ads and this made you even more money. And you could follow this upward spiral for quite a while until the model flattens out.
Today we have a more clever audience and a dramatically more confusing communication landscape so the model doesn’t work any more. Advertisers have to do things the hard way and actually use their brains to create a truckload of quality content instead. Because a savvy audience actually demands quality.
There remain areas, however, where one can still carve out a spiral that works. Of course, they depend on providing quality to a savvy audience but this is not impossible. Serving food is one such example.
We’re a curious and a hungry nation. We will nose around a new restaurant with as much interest and glee as we do when we see a traffic accident. In time, we will walk in and try it out. If we like it, we will return. If we love it, we’ll take our friends. If we hate it, the restaurant won’t last.
It sounds simple enough. It is also the reason for the more consistently decent places to turn into geese that lay golden eggs. We can be trusted to walk in and try anything new, so if you manage to ensnare us, we’re yours for a good, long while.
I’ve seen this effect in Gozo over the past year. It started with a little café in Victoria with the unlikely name of Capitan Spriss. I shudder to think of the number of ways we go about referring to it since we’re a nation that just loves to bowdlerise names beyond recognition.
In any case, the café is pretty in a seaside cabin sort of way, with painted wood panelling and portholes and all sorts of little decorative cues. The coffee is good, the sweets are lovely, and the price is right. So every time I’m in the area, I drop in for an espresso and cake, and every time I’m competing with others for a table.
Delivers the goods at a very reasonable price
Initially, I wondered what sort of situation one must be in to escape the beauty of Italy and the sheer size of that market to set up shop in Gozo. This eventually turned to admiration for the group of young people who worked hard at keeping their café going.
Then, at some point during the winter, I spotted a pizzeria that’s not far up the road from the café and that carried the same name. It’s actually called Ottavo Senso and has the addition of ‘by Capitan Spriss’ to make sure we know it’s the same people running it. I foolishly walked in, expecting a table to be magically waiting for me, to be politely told that it was more likely for a needle to walk past the eye of a camel than it is for me to confuse aphorisms. Or something of the sort.
The next time I was in Gozo I had the common sense to book a table, and this sensibility was rewarded with a pizza that lodged itself firmly in my memory without weighing down my stomach. Their slow-rise sourdough base has a light and airy texture and manages to remain slim and dry. I’d picked a simple one with fresh tomato and buffalo mozzarella, dressed with a lovely olive oil and coming very close to pizza perfection.
I thought of sharing the news with all four readers of this column but then life got in the way and I wound up writing about a whole lot of other restaurants. All the while, however, the itch remained. I was determined to pay another visit, eat another pizza, and write about it.
I finally got round to it. Or, I thought I would. I walked by during the day and booked a table for the following evening. A couple of hours later I stumbled across yet another ‘by Capitan Spriss’ in Marsalforn. This one’s called Bella Vita al Mare and it’s one of the row of restaurants that face the charming little menqa. The restaurant was there before and the takeover hasn’t been matched by the stylish approach to the original café, so it includes garish ropelights and a rather drab décor, but perhaps they have something up their sleeve.
It was reasonably close to dinner time so I walked in and ordered a plate of pasta with cacao e pepe. The better half picked the one with squid and prawn. Both dishes were quite lovely. My choice was strategic. I was in the throes of that sort of cold that made me feel like my head was stuffed with cotton wool and peanut butter so I needed full flavours to penetrate the barriers to my olfactory.
It did the trick. The dish was savoury, with guanciale adding a salty punch and plenty of black pepper completing the zing. I didn’t expect to appreciate the much more delicate fish dish across the table so I had to take the word of the better half about it being quite delicious. There was also the matter of a very clean plate at the end of it to confirm it.
So I asked the lovely, young lady who was taking care of us whether we could swap reservations and have supper at Bella Vita al Mare again. I’d spotted a wood-burning pizza oven here and wasn’t about to head back to Malta without a pizza.
So, like the package deal tourist, I ate at the same place on two consecutive nights. The second time was my designated pizza night and I picked the one called U Genio. I took a wild stab and guessed that it’s the one that the Pizzaiolo named. Topped with mozzarella, provola, pancetta, and chilli pepper, it also sounded like everything I enjoy packed onto a single disc of goodness.
The better half was still stung by the guilt of the previous night’s pasta so she favoured the virtue of a parmigiana di melanzane. This time, our orders were taken by a young man with a twinkle in his eye and a helpful disposition, assuring us that we’d made an excellent choice and helping us pick an inexpensive wine, apologising that their wine menus had yet to be printed. It was, after all, their first week of operation.
Our food was delivered within a very reasonable time. I started by taking a little bite of the parmigiana and it is the real deal. I’m not too stoked on the amount of tomato that usually goes into this dish but the aubergine was just right, it’s mild bitterness shaping the overall flavour and allowing the tomato to recede to where it belongs.
The pizza was quite the delight, with round bits of provola melted into the surface adding a sharpness that mozzarella can’t quite manage. Thin strips of pancetta and a chilli kick complete this pizza, making for a full-flavoured meal that happened to be just what I needed that weekend.
The real star here is the base, the same sourdough I’d experienced a few months before, because I’d typically opt for a much simpler approach to pizza. It is what carries the ingredients and makes for an easily digestible vehicle to whatever combination of toppings happens to tickle your fancy.
At €8 for each dish and the added price of a bottle of wine, Bella Vita al Mare delivers the goods at a very reasonable price.
The people behind what is rapidly resembling a chain have nailed the model – they open their doors and wait for inbound punters, feeding us well and pricing it right. And as long as they continue to do so, they’ve got me caught in a pleasantly welcoming trap.