Pillar 04 · Food & Where to Eat

Traditional Maltese Food You Should Try in Żejtun

A short primer on traditional Maltese food, with the dishes a visitor to Żejtun should look for. Not a comprehensive cookbook — a useful reading guide for menus.

This article is a stub. We’ll add named restaurants where each dish is done well as we expand it.

The dishes worth ordering

Fenkata is the benchmark Maltese long lunch — slow-cooked rabbit, traditionally feast-meal food, often served as a stew with red wine and garlic, or fried in olive oil. Ftira is Maltese sourdough, often split open and filled with tuna, olives, capers, and tomato; lunch food, not breakfast. Aljotta is the fish soup, traditionally Friday food, garlicky and clean, with rice or sometimes pasta in the broth. Bragioli are beef olives — thin slices of beef rolled around a stuffing of bacon, breadcrumbs and herbs, slow-braised; a winter classic. Kapunata is the Maltese caponata: aubergines, tomatoes, capers and olives, served as a side with bread. Imqaret are date-filled fried pastries, mostly eaten as street food at festas. And under all of it sits Maltese olive oil — much of it produced from groves that ring Żejtun — and the wild capers gathered from the rubble walls along the south coast each spring.

Drinks: Kinnie (the bittersweet local soft drink), Cisk lager, and increasingly serious Maltese wines from the small island producers. [LOCAL FACT — Mattew to recommend specific Żejtun restaurants known for each of the dishes above.]

Seasonal Maltese cooking

Maltese cooking has a strong seasonal pulse. Lampuki (dolphin fish) is autumn food, traditionally served as a pie with vegetables. Fenkata is winter and feast-day food, though it’s now available year-round. Aljotta works in any season but is the canonical Friday dish. Bragioli is winter food. Wild capers and fresh broad beans are spring; stuffed marrows are summer. The good kitchens follow these rhythms rather than serving the full menu year-round, and a restaurant whose menu doesn’t change with the season is one to be cautious about.

What this article will cover

  • The full short list of dishes, with what to expect on the plate
  • Where in Żejtun to eat each one well
  • Seasonal notes — what’s available when
  • Maltese drinks worth pairing
  • How to order in basic Maltese
  • What to skip on a tourist menu

Read more on this pillar

Part of our Food & Where to Eat pillar. Pair with best restaurants, Sunday lunch, and Maltese wine in Żejtun.

Mattew Cassar

Resident · Writer

Mattew writes zejtun.com from a flat above his grandfather’s old workshop on Triq San Girgor. He has lived in Żejtun for twenty-three of his thirty-one years.