There is a week every September when Malta exhales. The heat stops insisting, the evenings arrive earlier than you expect, and eating outside becomes a pleasure again rather than an endurance.
The kitchen notices before the calendar does.
Slow cooking, mostly. Rabbit braised long and low, which nobody really wants in August. Bragoli in a sauce that has had all afternoon. Soups start making sense again. The lampuki are running, so the fish changes almost daily depending on the morning.
The vegetables are still generous — marrows, tomatoes, peppers — and they will be for a few weeks more. Autumn here is not a cliff. It is a long, slow handover.
Nothing is on the menu because the season changed. It is on because it tastes right now.
