Ed eats
Beer Kitchen
Skyparks Level 0
Luqa
Tel: 2180 1188
Food: 7/10
Location: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
It is odd when two unlikely worlds collide. Fashion is so ugly that, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we feel compelled to change it every few months. Food, on the other hand, is a necessity for most and an indulgence for the privileged.
I’m including myself and the majority of the readers of this newspaper among the privileged. We usually get three meals a day and have a roof over our heads – two factors that separate us from a significant proportion of the world’s population. We climb up the rungs of privilege as we choose the food we want to eat, and own the roof over our heads. You can see where it goes from here.
Having food that runs in fashionable cycles is not something most can afford but it is a factor we’ve become accustomed to.
I was once at a rather famous restaurant in London, and was lucky to be sitting with the chef. He owned the place we were sitting in and another few restaurants in the city, has been published a number of times and is quite a name within the more poncy restaurant circles. We were eating a fish called the ‘red gurnard’.
I asked about its provenance and he told me that it had been largely ignored for decades. Then some other famous chef did something with it and suddenly it gained status of fish du jour. Now, he told me, fishermen in the Channel and on the Atlantic coast couldn’t keep up with the demand.
A fish had become fashionable. One day it’s minding its own business in blissful anonymity and the next it’s being pan-basted by the dozen.
The same thing happens with drinks. Brandy was all the rage once. Then it was the turn of blended whiskies, and now we all want malts that are fashionably unattached and blissfully single.
As wines gained traction among the great unwashed, it caused no end of snobbery and divide. Now it is the turn for beers to shine. And they’ve penetrated the markets in a steadily increasing way.
A decade ago I had to travel to drink beers, losing my mind (and bits of my liver) inside bars that served 300 to 400 varieties of beers. Now they’re here, washing ashore like messengers dispatched by monastic brewers.
Luckily, beers are a little more democratic than wines. If you consider a fiver for a bottle to be steep, you’ve never laid your gaze on the eye-watering prices that a bottle of red liquid from Bordeaux can cost.
As beer goes from strength to strength, our options for drinking top tipple with a meal are also on the up and up. The last one I got to try out didn’t fool around with naming the place. It serves beer and it cooks food. So let’s just call it ‘Beer Kitchen’ and keep things simple for everyone, their accountant must have said.
It’s inside a rather large space on the lower floor of the Skyparks complex that in turn forms part of the greater airport cluster of buildings. So not only does the place look good, it’s a treat when it comes to parking. They even gave us a couple of hours off our parking bill on our way out.
It’s pretty neatly done up in the franchise sort of way so there’s plenty of raw timber, copper lights, unrendered brickwork and wallpaper with a beer coaster motif. I like the rough and ready feeling it’s got going for it because it feels like a large pub that serves food, rather than a formal dining spot that also serves beer.
A thoroughly enjoyable evening in an informal and pretty restaurant
A young man greeted us and showed us to our table. He was happy to talk about beer when I tried to figure out what I wanted to start with and, in a humble and disarming way, showed that he knew plenty about every beer on the list. We ordered some potato skins and a round of beers to fuel our business with the food menu.
I was itching for something potent and the list does include some heavyweights, but I wasn’t about to get a bit tipsy before dinner. Alcohol has one major drawback, and that is its ability to decrease our olfactory discrimination – our sense of taste gets progressively more numb as we approach inebriation.
We settled on three starters to share between the four of us and then went about trying to figure out what we wanted for mains. The starters were easy – we wanted practically everything, so settled for crusted pork cheek fritters, steamed buns with beef cheeks and a selection of grilled sausages.
While the main courses are equally interesting, we couldn’t quite settle the score. There are three different burgers – lamb, rabbit and beef – and a handful of other meat-based dishes. The grilled pork neck sounded lovely but I wasn’t too stoked with the inclusion of peach and tomato sauce.
Then a young lady came to our aid. She mentioned ribeye on the bone as a speciality of the day as well as a special burger. She wasn’t quite sure what this consisted of and quickly referred to the kitchen. She did, however, change gears when we discussed the beers, showing that she knew exactly what they were serving.
It was a really quiet night so our starters were served quickly. They’re tastefully and simply presented on wooden boards and we arranged these in a way that would help us share the lot. The crusted pork cheek is possibly the best approach to this delightful and often ignored part of the pig’s anatomy I’ve tasted for a good long while. Unctuous and flavourful inside, the exterior is dipped in rolled oats and fried for a crunchy texture.
The beef cheeks, tender and sweet thanks to a red onion jam, are clamped between the two halves of a soft and fluffy steamed bun and were equally delicious. We’d ordered a mix of Maltese, Calabrese and Sicilian sausage and there were no surprises here.
Our second flight of beers arrived in time for the main course. We’d all ordered what we felt would be better suited to the dish we were eating, aided by a nifty numbering system on the menu and the advice of the service team.
The clever one among us ordered a flight of three of the beers they have on tap and got to try every one with all of our food. I grow and learn.
I was sharing an 800g ribeye with the clever one. The steak is served carved on a wooden board and had been grilled rare as we’d requested it. They grill their meat on a combination of charcoal and wood, and this is reflected in the almost overwhelming intensity of charred flavour. It turns out beautifully with the marbled steak that turned out to be an excellent cut of meat.
For sides we’d ordered everything but the salad. The grilled veg was excellent and overshadowed the roast potatoes and chips.
I tasted the glazed ribs, and they were decent but didn’t hold a candle to the steak. Yet the glaze, sweet and with the bitter overtone of coffee, was actually an interesting take on the traditional barbecue sauces.
You could tell which one of us had overeaten on the weekend because she had settled for the cured salmon with horseradish cream cheese from the list of starters. I took a nibble and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the masterful curing but it wasn’t going to divert my attention from the steak.
We skipped dessert and settled the bill, paying just over €30 each. That’s not a lot to pay for two courses and two or three speciality beers each. We’d been treated very kindly by the team at Beer Kitchen and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening in an informal and pretty restaurant that has more pub heritage than anything.
As we donned jackets and pocketed our dispersed belongings, the young lady who had been so helpful visited our table one last time and thanked us for visiting. Her parting note was a reminder that they really appreciate reviews on Tripadvisor. I couldn’t help wonder whether this one counts.
You can send e-mails about this column to edeats@gmail.com.