Hammett’s Gastro Bar
2, Triq Sant’ Antnin,
Sliema
Tel: 2134 1116

Food: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

This week I remembered why I’d started watching the Netflix show called Chef’s Table. It’s easy to forget the reason that prodded us towards something we enjoyed. When did you first read a book and decide that reading is actually a very good idea? Some of us are lucky to remember a particular moment, a fantastic book or the person who passed on the book that made us fall in love with an author.

I’m using reading as an example. You may want to swap reading for an enjoyable activity, like watching football on TV, in which case you might remember which young man in shorts ran in a way that tickled your fancy. In any case, there’s a reason for really digging into an activity and pursuing it.

Chef’s Table started with an episode about a chef who runs a restaurant that’s something of an institution. There are dishes on the menu that are legendary and, should you have the foresight to place a reservation, you will most likely go there for one of the mythical dishes that have been made in the same way since the genius himself created them. It’s like an opera. The music has been written, the orchestra has rehearsed tirelessly and every performance is a marvel.

The next episode featured a different chef with equal acclaim. He woke up in the morning and popped round the market. He bought the ingredients that were bursting with fresh seasonality. He then returned to his restaurant and, in conversation with his colleagues, dreamt up that night’s menu.

Every night is different and every night is spectacular. But the character of the chef seeps into every dish. It’s a bit like a jazz quintet that sits around a quiet club and, thanks to years of understanding, can delight an audience for an entire evening without having rehearsed a single note.

Now you might love jazz and despise the opera. It is even more likely that you love the opera and despise jazz. But you can’t fault one or the other based on your preferences. You will appreciate that both are genres worthy of respect. And that’s what got me into the show in the first place. No chef will take the same approach to greatness and that’s what makes each one unique.

What I’ve just written is a brief recap of an hour’s conversation with a friend I was having lunch with at Hammett’s in Sliema. We both remember the place as La Rive. It enjoyed its heyday and then it slowly lost its popularity for some reason or another.

Born out of the ashes is a place that calls itself a gastro bar. The notion isn’t new. We’ve seen the rise of the gastro pub, we’ve witnessed the weeding out of the weaker ones and we can now tell which ones were good enough to remain and which ones were trying to hitch a ride without a valid ticket.

The formula at Hammett’s is a brave and interesting one. Every portion is the size of the average starter. You’re encouraged to pick a number of dishes and share them. Food is served as it is prepared so the notion of starters and main courses is done away with in favour of tapas or sushi-style delivery.

The formula at Hammett’s is a brave and interesting one

It’s no secret that I favour this. In a Mediterranean country that seems to delight in large dishes of pasta or pizza, proposing a variety of small dishes with contrasting flavours and temperatures is vastly more interesting. To me, at least.

I’m pretty sure this will disappoint those who want to be fed a large portion of the same food. Well, these have plenty of options elsewhere. Were Hammett’s to try and please absolutely everyone, it would have a broader audience of people who are mildly interested rather than a smaller group of people who really love the approach and who will return for more.

I’ve long eschewed the notion of universal popularity. It inevitably leads to a dilute proposition, to one that is generic and uninspired and that will leave everyone equally unaffected.

Back to the food. We sat there and looked through the menu and were excited about most of it. The core ingredients draw on easily-available produce that, per se, could be uninspiring. What the chef’s done with them, however, sounds interesting. The menu leads with Earl Grey tea cured salmon, almond granola, orange preserve and pea shoots. Well, yes please.

We picked four dishes for the two of us and set about sharing them. We tackled tiny tacos, stuffed with lampuki, guacamole, coriander and a dash of chilli that breathed life into the mild-mannered concoction. We crunched on crisp calamari fritters, dipped in a garlic aioli.  Then we shared a lamb fillet, cooked rare, and served with a pepper and onion hummus, toasted cashews and a persillade. We’d ordered a side of what Hammett’s calls a ‘potato field’.

These are tiny spherical potato croquettes with a mixture of black olives, truffle, toasted almonds and garlic. This is probably my least favourite dish but by this time the music had gone from Diana Krall to Miles Davis. With the 1959 masterpiece Kind of Blue playing in the background, I think I’d have enjoyed chewing even on wet tea towels.

Throughout, we were treated like royalty by the floor manager, a strapping man from Serbia who knows service more than most, and his very able team. So what does one do after an enjoyable lunch that set the two of us back €35? One returns for more a couple of days later.

This time I went there with the better half. She shares my enthusiasm for meals that favour an exciting concoction over large portion sizes. We ordered the cured salmon and it is really a tiny portion. The size is more than made up for in flavour and texture. The granola crunch has a seductive aroma of almond and I endeavoured to pick the cured salmon, a shred of fresh orange  and a few flakes of granola to create a lovely little bite.

From there we moved to calamarata pasta served with squid. The sauce is excellent but there was something slightly odd with the squid – a niggle I could put down to the day’s produce or, more worryingly, an issue with the frozen supply. We didn’t think much of this because by the time we were done discussing it, our second flight of dishes was arriving. During both of my forays, the serving time was remarkably quick and the presentation of every dish was quite spiffing.

I’d tried to return to the lamb fillets but the man who took our orders had informed us that they’d swapped it for the shoulder and there was a cauliflower puree to replace the pepper and onion hummus. All the more interesting, I thought. Well, I think I prefer the dish as described but it was once again a very enjoyable course. This time I’d gone with sweet potato fries as a side and they were crunchy, sweet and hard to let go of.

It took a trip to the bathroom to notice what Hammett’s has done to the place. It feels like it was properly designed and then finished to the specification that the designers had in mind. Copper is quite the theme, with the beautifully warm metal contrasting with plenty of exposed wood vein. The result is an approachable chic, something one would expect of a marriage of old-world taste with an ageless audience in mind. Once the winter sets in, I’d be very happy to swap my place on the outside terrace for one inside this lovely interior.

This time around, we had weekend drinks to add to the tab and wound up paying a little over €50. It is a little steep for lunch but one is paying for location, presentation and clever combinations of ingredients. If the core idea behind Hammett’s is stuck to, through thick and thin, it has the ability to garner a following of those who identify with what’s being proposed. And is it not better to be loved for what you stand for than to be mildly liked for trying to please the masses?