Ed eats

Giacomo’s
The Strand
Sliema
Tel: 2713 1116

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

I woke up at the crack of dawn one day last week. This isn’t something I’d normally do because now that we’ve escaped the dreadful boredom of an entirely agricultural society, we have control over light.

Seeing there’s no need for me to make the best of sunlight hours, I just let nature take its course when I don’t have to battle traffic on my way to a job.

I did this to follow a terribly geeky pursuit but the bit that’s interesting is that I spent the early morning hours walking around Gżira. I chose Gżira because of the diversity that it packs into a few blocks. And, as I’ve often said in this column, there’s plenty of food to choose from. If you’re not too fussed about decor and service, you have a very broad spectrum of cuisines to choose from and there’s a wide variety of food quality as well.

At that time of the morning, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a proper Sicilian breakfast at Bella Sicilia, a proper Sicilian cafe that feels exactly like you’ve crossed the narrow seas that separate us and sat at any cafe/tavola calda over there.

A couple of days later I spent a morning in Sliema, learning from one of the most incredible educators I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter, and left his place in time for lunch. In the company of a gradually evolving member of our species, we walked along the front from the Tigné side, hoping to find decent food to chat over.

Burger King and McDonald’s are now neighbours there, so we had plenty of rapid calories to choose from but it wasn’t quite what we were after. Then there’s a row of cafés and restaurants that I really can’t tell apart so we walked past these. I’ve been to Café Cuba quite a few times and love the pizza there, so I considered it for a moment, but then spotted Army and Navy next door.

When I was a kid, the place was already a rather old little place. Back then I enjoyed the food there and remember asking specifically to go there just as I was able to say the words ‘army’ and ‘navy’.

I recall the chips and the squeezy bottles of ketchup and the taste of vinegar on the chips, all washed with a bright, white light that shone off the tiles on the wall, making the place feel like the inside of a cold store.

I walked in, pulling the accompanying homo erectus with me and babbling about these ancient memories. As we sat, I realised the charm had gone. The place looks hideous and the menu is that obvious card of food you can’t choose from because everything is equally as unappealing. Army and Navy had just dragged a wood rasp across the bare knuckles of my nostalgia so I walked out, to the apparent disappointment of the waitress.

We crossed the road, intent of making it to Gżira and picking the first cuisine that took our fancy. We didn’t make it far though, because there’s a cafe and bistro there that I hadn’t been to and that really looked the part.

Called Giacomo’s, the restaurant occupies the spot that’s changed names a few times over the past decade. The decor appealed to both of us but we decided to take a look at the menu, just in case it had anything in common with the place we’d just escaped. Well, it wasn’t. There wasn’t a single item there that we could have predicted, so we walked straight in, feeling quite confident this time.

I’d love to pop by for a daily speciality because the kitchen has plenty of imagination, a factor that sets it apart from its rather generic competition

The interior is quite small and has been done up very tastefully without sacrificing any practicality. They’ve managed to find room for an open kitchen that hosted three chefs hard at work and even a few tables for patrons who’d like to escape the heat of the showcase that the outside tables form.

My victim has even more exceeding standards when it comes to food than I do and is a stickler for design, so his approval of the interior, even going so far as to compliment the choice of chairs, so you can consider the place quite attractive. They were even playing music we both liked in the background. Pity about the free Spotify account. A subscription costs less than the price of one main course for an entire month of ad-free music and the ads are just embarrassing in a public space.

We sat inside, all the way in the corner beneath the kitchen, hoping to be as far from the sun as possible. We had menus within a minute and they’re quite an unexpected affair. There is one page of omelettes and bagels, not too far out so far, going on to a handful of interesting salads and a spot that suggests you look at the menu for daily specialities. This is what I expect of a bistro but it looks like we were out of luck. The board was clean as a whistle.

The snacks list, a selection of sandwiches, sounded like plenty of thought had gone into it, with gems like a pulled pork ciabatta with sweet mustard mayonnaise and relish. The main courses include a sausage and zucchini frittata and a sticky sesame seed pork belly. Not your everyday cafe fare. I picked the lamb burger and my victim went with the fish and chips, and we added a bottle of beer each because it felt like the right thing to do.

A table away from us, ladies with shopping bags and expensive handbags discussed nutrition in terms of sugar, their own recipes and an amusing disregard for their own health. There is an obligation that the Sliema housewife must observe. Be loud. Unless a Sliema housewife’s conversation is heard by a fair radius of spectators, there is little point in being one. After all, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

So now we know that one of them is very busy all afternoon with grocery shopping. And plenty about the others that I won’t waste time writing about. I’m not complaining. The presence of an indigenous species adds to the charm of most places. “Ara!” one of them exclaimed, pointing to the shopping bags they all had, “we all bought something today”.

The performance was all the more noticeable because we waited for quite a while for the food to be served. When it was, the effort that had gone into the presentation made it all worth the while.

I had a bowl of well-salted sweet potato fries, a little pile of leaves that wants to be a salad when it grows up and a very neat burger with melted cheese dripping quite engagingly down the side on top of a long, wooden dish that had been hollowed out in the right places.

The fish was served with a Jenga of square-cut chips that were cooked twice, a golden breaded fish fillet on a generous serving of mushy peas, tartar sauce and a salad just like mine. I tasted the fish and it was pretty decent, with a crisp, breaded exterior and a lovely texture to it, remaining perfectly moist. The chips were excellent, even if I felt guilty disturbing the perfect tower that they had been built into.

My sweet potato fries were just lovely, cut quite thin and enjoying a perfectly dry-fry. The burger patty felt suspiciously like it had been store bought but it did the trick. Much more interesting was the tomato relish and the melted mascarpone and Red Leicester that somehow made for a much sweeter result than I’d imagined.

I like my burgers savoury, resisting even bacon jam in the pursuit of a perfectly savoury burger. Unusually, I quite enjoyed this and if you’re the type who is partial to a sweet taste with your burger, this one’s right up your street.

We paid €25 in total, a fair price for the presentation, the location, and the fact that someone had actually bothered to think about a menu before committing it to paper.

I’d love to pop by for a daily speciality because the kitchen has plenty of imagination, a factor that sets it apart from its rather generic competition. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that the food will look good and this inevitably sets a meal off to a rocking start.

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