Fewer people, better weather than you expect, and the food at its best. The case for the off-season trip.
Malta in November is the island's best-kept secret and its worst-marketed season. Sixteen to twenty degrees, no queues, half-empty streets in places that were impassable in August — and the cooking at its absolute peak.
Why the food is better now
Because Maltese food is winter food. The defining dishes are braises, stews and soups — rabbit cooked for hours, kawlata, soppa tal-armla, baked pasta. In August they are technically available and slightly beside the point. In November they are exactly right.
The rooms are different too. The restaurants that survive on tourists are quiet or shut; the ones that survive on locals are full of them. You end up eating where people actually eat, which in high season takes some effort to arrange.
Come in August for the sea. Come in November for the food.
Open every day through the winter, noon till midnight, in the heart of Paceville.
Photo: Simongozo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Malta in November is the island's best-kept secret and its worst-marketed season. Sixteen to twenty degrees, no queues, half-empty streets in places that were impassable in August — and the cooking at its absolute peak.
Why the food is better now
Because Maltese food is winter food. The defining dishes are braises, stews and soups — rabbit cooked for hours, kawlata, soppa tal-armla, baked pasta. In August they are technically available and slightly beside the point. In November they are exactly right.
The rooms are different too. The restaurants that survive on tourists are quiet or shut; the ones that survive on locals are full of them. You end up eating where people actually eat, which in high season takes some effort to arrange.
Come in August for the sea. Come in November for the food.
Open every day through the winter, noon till midnight, in the heart of Paceville.
Photo: Simongozo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0