Seafood shacks offer some of the best food there is, simple and authentic, and we love to discover them on our travels. Fernando and Paco Hermosa’s Bar Bigote in Sanlucar de Barrameda at the tip of Andalucia is one such, where Atlantic seafood of an astonishing variety, including sea anemones and sea violets, is accompanied by crisp pale Manzanilla.
Neptuno in Azenhas do Mar, west of Lisbon, used to be much favoured by senior politicians, one of whom invited us to join him and his wife for a seafood supper which lingers in the memory years later. The whole grouper cooked in broth in a fish kettle with boiled eggs, potatoes, cabbage, pumpkin and lots of coriander is a dish that would adapt well to the Maltese kitchen, I remember thinking at the time, and indeed I cooked it more than once.
At Morans-on-the-Weir in Co. Galway and O Grove in Galicia we ate the sweetest, freshest oysters straight out of the sea, with Guiness, and with chilled bottles of Albariño which the fishermen hauled up from the water along with the oysters.
The Crab Shack on Tybee Island off the Georgia coast near Savannah is one of those places you always hope to find but often miss. We knew nothing about it but just followed our noses to a bleached and weathered wooden shack on a quiet dock on Chimney Creek.
It’s a large square bar for the locals, tables under the trees for the tourists and tables inside, cooled by an overhead fan and protected from bugs by mosquito mesh panels for the serious eater, most of whom were consuming Low Country Boil – potatoes, sweet corn, boiling sausage and plenty of shrimp cooked together in a highly seasoned broth and brought to the table in a large pot.
A roll of paper towel was put on the table, and periodically we emptied the bowls of shells and husks into a bin set in a well at the centre of the table. Ice-cold beer or a frozen margarita was the only possible accompaniment.
Il Re del Pesce in Malta was where Michael Cauchi introduced us to Meridiana’s Isis as an accompaniment to spaghetti with rizzi (sea urchins). Fernando’s on Taipa Island, Macau, the lobster shacks in Maine, the oyster bars in Apalachicola on Florida’s panhandle will all reward you with the freshest shellfish imaginable.
Mġarr in Gozo is a treasure trove for lovers of seafood, although Tmun and Porto Vecchio are serious restaurants so hardly count as seafood shacks. Sammy’s Il-Kċina tal-Barrakka is more casual, so perhaps it makes the cut.
And to our collection must be added Mġarr ix-Xini kiosk, where Noel Vella cooks sublimely simple fish and seafood. I have never eaten more perfectly cooked wild red snapper than the pair he grilled for us one lunchtime in early May, when the wind had swung to the north, the narrow bay was sheltered and the tiny beach lay sun-dappled under the tamarisk trees.
With quickly cooked calamari to start, it was a feast. I loved the chalked notice on the blackboard offering Champagne Jacquart. As an alternative, Sandra Vella mentioned the fruity local wine, “made by a guy in Sannat”.
But in fact, a cold beer was just right. The menu, chalked on another board, changes every day, depending on the catch, although meat and chicken are also available.
Two small French girls at the next table were thrilled with their pile of deep-fried golden ravioli, and the hand-cut, chunky chips came with no more garnish than a scattering of Gozo sea salt. A wedge of fragrant lemon was the only accompaniment to the fish.
To produce food like this, you need a well-seasoned plancha and a fine-tuned sense of split-second timing; once fish ‘flakes from the bone’, it is overcooked. Here it was served rosé à l’arête, just pink on the bone.
Only open for lunch, this is worth the journey. More than anywhere else, the setting reminded me of the now-closed El Bulli in Catalonia: similar precipitous road through garrigue, a narrow, sheltered bay, a tiny pebble beach.
But the kiosk at Mġarr ix-Xini has no pretensions to grandeur, and long may it continue thus; anything other than plastic tables and paper napkins would have been almost a disappointment.
My recipes today do not rely on a well-seasoned plancha, but timing is still of the essence, as shellfish is easily overcooked to become rubbery. I have included clams and mussels now that these are increasingly available, albeit imported.
Our favourite quick seafood supper is spaghetti vongole, using the small, sweet Sicilian clams, or I simply steam them with a little white wine and some thyme.