Location, location, location – this saying never rang truer than in the case of seaside bars. David Schembri speaks to the people working behind some of Malta’s busiest beach clubs to find out what local sunworhsippers bite into when down by the sea.
Beach bars are strange creatures. Whereas most restaurants nowadays have a website and a telephone number you can easily find, some of the most recommended beachside eateries could get away without having as much as a landline.
Bathers are inevitably attracted to the burgers, chips and pasta, with the full burger resplendent with eggs, cheese and sausage being quite the draw
Trade must be brisk – and it’s not surprising. After all, the salty sea air and the scorching sun – coupled with the picnic cooler’s fall from modern graces – ensure that the beach bars of the Maltese islands have a steady stream of potential customers.
Whatever the combination may be – the delicate fragrance of freshly-baked pizza or the all-out ‘come hither’ smell of deep-fried chips combined with the salty air – it works.
One of the best places to go to at sunset is Golden Bay. It is also, according to a very unscientific poll among my friends, one of the best places to have a seaside snack – or a full-blown meal, for that matter.
According to Gordon Buttigieg, the manager of Munchies, what patrons prefer before the sun sets is pizza and pasta, with the bolognese sauce being a firm favourite. Unsurprisingly, burgers and other grilled meats also feature highly in the popularity charts at this particular beach bar.
Once the spectacle over the horizon is over, the beach bar turns into an à la carte restaurant, and Buttigieg recommends the special lobster-filled ravioli: “A lot of people come and ask specifically for them.”
Pizza, pasta and burgers also feature heavily among the choices of the patrons of The Exiles, in Sliema. Etienne Roe, the manager, notes that pizza is a firm favourite among locals, with the Exiles – a pizza topped with Parma ham, mozzarella and rocket – being the jewel in the crown. The tagliatelle gamberi asparagi and marinara vongole are also firm favourites among patrons.
“As the summer starts, people tend to go for lighter items during the day and then go for other dishes for dinner,” Roe says. Because the lido gets a lot of regular customers, having a large, varied menu is a must, and The Exiles runs the gamut from grilled meats through to pasta to pizza. “People will want variety, and if you don’t have a big menu they may get bored.”
If you ever fancied Eric Cantona or a Zinedine Zidane, you could have them further down the Sliema shore at Surfside Bar and Grill, where all the dishes have been named after famous international and local sporting figures. The Cantona and Zidane are burgers, which are popular here as they are elsewhere, but the Michael Mifsud is a prawn and mussel risotto, while Lionel Messi, is, to all intents and purposes, a capricciosa pizza.
The barbecue menu is also very popular, according to owner Justin Gambin – with notable mentions going to the ribeye steak, the New York striploin and the fillet – that’s Pele, Diego Armando Maradona and Eusebio. Interestingly, Pele is Argentinian in this case.
Things get fishier further north. Karl Micallef, who runs Paradise Bay Lido in the eponymous beach, says fish dishes are hot at his establishment, with grilled calamari being a firm favourite with patrons. On Sundays, however, another local favourite joins the fray – or fry – and fried rabbit lands on the menu, as will paella later on in the summer, Micallef promises.
Still to the north of the island, the restaurant associated with the Barracudas Sports Club has recently changed hands, and is now under Dylan Farrugia. He points out a difference between restaurant patrons and those who are at the beach with their families.
While fast food – burgers, chips and chicken nuggets for the kids – are popular with the latter, fish dishes, the restaurant’s speciality, are most popular with local diners. The pièce de résistance, Farrugia reports, is the pasta with fish al cartoccio.
If by now you’re spotting a trend in seaside snacking habits, it’s because there is one, as Rita Borg of Carmen’s Snack Bar in Għar Lapsi can confirm. Her restaurant, which is a big word for the small boathouse she runs on the Għar Lapsi slipway, draws a mix of locals and tourists. Bathers are inevitably attracted to the burgers, chips and pasta, with the full burger resplendent with eggs, cheese and sausage being quite the draw, according to Borg, who runs the restaurant with her husband.
Her recommendations off the menu are her marinara pasta and fresh fish “although people will have their own preferences”. Tourists tend to go for pasta and burgers, while locals are drawn to lighter snacks.
With great heat comes great thirst, and beachside bars and restaurants are useful, if anything, for their supply of cold drinks. Cold water is popular among the beach bar faithful here, which is unsurprising given it’s often the cheapest and most effective drink to ward off thirst. Soft drinks are also popular, as is beer (and no prizes for guessing what people choose to drink on Maltese shores).
Some of the more sophisticated beach clubs have an appropriately more complex selection of drinks. Karl Micallef, from Paradise Bay, mentions white wine, sangria and frozen cocktails as being especially popular during the summer months. Over at Munchies, beer and water are popular, but cocktails are also gaining popularity.
The recipe to any good beachside meal, however, is what you do before. As mothers all over Malta have told us time and time again, one does not swim on a full stomach. Take their advice and turn up to the beach without having eaten. Check the sea for jellyfish, and jump in. Swim, until you’re on the right side of tired; then come out into the sun to dry. At this point, whatever they’re cooking in that little restaurant by the beach will start making itself known to your salt-numbed nose. The last step is to eat whatever you want, because it’s bound to taste better than it should.