Iċ-Ċima
St Simon Street, Xlendi, Gozo
Tel: 2155 8407

Food: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 9/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

We have it easy. Well, many of us do. I sat on the third floor of a charming restaurant in Xlendi and looked across at the cliffs and the sea beyond them, sipping on a cold glass of fizzy water. As I did, all I could hear was the splash of waves and froth from where the sea met the shore.

My only worry was the angle at which I should sit to prevent the sun from burning the back of my lily-white neck. Food was on its way, and I’d made sure there would be plenty of it. I wasn’t drinking wine though. When I woke up I was quite likely still a little drunk from the night before so I just wasn’t up for more. Still, it’s not a bad deal for lunchtime on a Monday.

Fewer than 24 hours earlier I was speaking to a man from Kurdistan. He sells counterfeit cigarettes in one of the dodgiest parts of Athens and is terrified of the police, the gangs, customs officers, immigration authorities, and probably more factions that he bothered to mention.

He showed me scars from his time in Syria and others from his time in Turkey. When he’s sold enough cigarettes at €1.50 a pack, he’ll escape to Germany and pay for his wife and daughter to make the trip and join him there. He knew, and I knew, this was nigh on impossible but we both played along.

He showed me her picture and kissed the screen of his phone, crying as he did. Compared to many people in Athens, he is actually doing quite well. He has his own street corner, has stock to sell, and has a trickle of paying customers. Many aren’t so lucky and this is Athens we’re talking about. As far as political categorising goes, it is the first world.

I’m not writing this to instil guilt in anyone who has a relatively easy life. I know I do. It’s that every time I experience the way that most people on the planet live, I am made more acutely appreciative of what we have around us.

Since you’re reading this column, you form part of a small group of people (globally speaking) that still buys the Sunday papers, is interested in a choice when eating out, and who can afford to make these choices. So, when you read this column, do take it in the spirit in which I write it. When I take issue with the prettiness of the pralines or the provenance of the prawns, it is my attempt to show a difference between what was promised by a restaurant and what’s been delivered to me.

So, with that clarified, I’ll forge ahead with this week’s food forays. Inevitably, when I’m back from travelling, I tend to compare the overall dining experiences with what we are used to on our lovely Islands. And, almost as inevitably, I realise that we are routinely overcharged for food. If one can eat well, drink well, and pay a reasonable price almost everywhere else in Europe I find little reason for us to overpay.

Could easily become one of my regular haunts

Gozo is something of an exception. We regularly pay much more decent prices for food in Gozo than we do in Malta. One morning, up at the crack of dawn, I popped into a bar for breakfast. I had toast and coffee, then more toast and more coffee, and had change from a €2 coin. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me in Malta.

I was in Gozo for just one night and decided I’d head back after a quiet lunch in Xlendi. This is the time of year when the weather is gorgeous and I felt like eating outside, preferably in the shade. The roof terrace of Ic-Cima sounded like the perfect spot.

When we arrived, the dining area downstairs was packed solid with a busload of tourists. The man who met us at the door guided us to the lift, stepped in with us, and said we’d have a much more tranquil experience upstairs. There’s also a separate chef for their terrace dining so we wouldn’t be competing for kitchen space with the large group. I found his words thoughtful and reassuring and this kindly demeanour was bestowed on us for the duration of our time there.

Our man showed us to a table at the very edge of the terrace, commanding a view of the beauty just outside. He brought menus and explained the daily specialities, leaving us with time and space to consider our options. When we’d made our choices, he was back to take our orders. We spoke a little and he told us that their restaurant was mainly visited by those who knew them and their food. They’re up the hill from the village centre so passing-by trade normally stops at the restaurants in the bay, with only the determined and those in the know making it to Ic-Cima.

He took off for a moment and returned with freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, and a fresh ġbejna. The simplicity and quality of these made for a wonderfully refreshing and delicious start to our meal.

Our starters took quite a while but we were in no hurry. When he delivered the dish, he laid it at table with pride and explained that it involved quite a bit of work in the kitchen and that the delay was inevitable. Simply drawing attention to a delay and acknowledging it is such a disarmingly honest way of dealing with the situation and I was thankful for it.

We’d ordered the seafood antipasti that’s served as a sharing platter and it is tastefully presented. In their own little cast metal pot were a heap of fresh mussels. They’re in a very simple, almost bland broth, cooked with precision and timing, so there’s a lot of mussel flavour and little else to get in the way. It’s a pity that the broth is too insipid to make for dipping bread in it but you can’t have things both ways.

Arranged around the slab of slate are medium red prawns, slices of cured salmon, swordfish, and a tuna carpaccio. There’s also a paper cone of house battered squid. The squid is fresh and cooked to a good internal temperature but they’re coated in a slightly clumsy batter. The chef’s own tartare sauce is quite tasty though so we ate most of the squid.

Once again, we waited a while for our next course. When they were served, however, all is forgiven. The pasta with pulled beef cheek and truffle cream is also served in its own pot. The meat is tender, the sauce restrained and with just enough truffle scent, and the pasta cooked just a little past al dente.

My pasta with cuttlefish ink was also pretty, piled into a large, white bowl and with a sprig of flowering sage adding colour and interest. As I attacked it, I realised I should have gone with my first instinct and ordered the starter size.

The chef is disciplined with the use of salt and I appreciate this, preferring to add salt to taste than to be saddled with a dish that’s too salty.

This needed a little bit of help to prop up the delicate cuttlefish flavour and, oddly, I could detect hardly any sage in the sauce itself. The viscosity is on point however, and the sauce clung to the pasta as it should. The pieces of cuttlefish that are liberally spread throughout were exceptionally tender.

We paid just over €50 for the meal. Seafood and views are both worth paying for and we’d had friendly service on top of that, so I suppose the experience is quite literally on the money. There’s a humility about this little escape from the madness that Xlendi can be, and this adds to its charm. As winter approaches and my visits to Gozo become more frequent, Ic-Cima could easily become one of my regular haunts.

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