Cuisine of Comino Island for gourmets. Places for dinner - best restaurants

Despite their small sizes, Comino and Gozo can offer the travelers a lot of places to try really tasty dishes of Malta cuisine. Traditionally, the visitors of the Blue Lagoon bring the food with them or buy it at the stalls on a beach, though there are a few good restaurants on the island. So if you decide to have a dinner on Comino, choose the Blue Lagoon Restaurant, or Rotunda, or The Terrace. You can also go to an internet café or the hotel’s hall. It’s the only one here, you won’t miss it. The Tower, the restaurant inside the ancient tower, is only opened to the hotel guests.

There are more places, where you can eat for a reasonable price, on Gozo. It should be mentioned, that at the places of medium or low price category the price is lower, than on Malta. To get acquainted with the local cuisine in its original form, you’d better go to a small village, for example, Arbu. The prices there are low, they mostly cook for the locals, then for the tourists, so the taste will be maximally close to traditional. However, in big cities, by the standards of Gozo, you may also find restaurants, which serve delicious local food. Most of them are in Mgarr Harbour, in Ainsilem village, in Victoria, Shpendi, and Marsalforn. If you decided to have a meal at a restaurant, remember, that people in Gozo do not hurry. Ever. It applies to the stuff at the cafes and restaurants, so be ready to wait for your order for quite some time.

The cuisine of Gozo and Comino does not differ from the Maltese cuisine – the same combination of West and East traditions. Prickly pear cactus fruit is really popular here. If you want, you can pick them yourself. Just don’t forget some thick gloves, otherwise, you will have to dig hundreds of needles out of your hands. You should buy the fruits that have already been peeled. As there are a lot of pits in a fruit, it’s better to drink the juice from a prickly pear. If you want to try the local cuisine, dishes made from a rabbit, called fenek, and octopus are a must. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

A classic dish with rabbit is stuffat tal-fenek, served with some potato and wine. A stuffed octopus is called arnit mimli. You can order bigilla, a vegetable snack, as an appetizer. If you like to have bread with everything, try hobza. It is backed in the traditional wood stoves and is considered to be one of the main national dishes. It is better to eat the bread with Gbejniet cheese, also a local delicacy, sold in small bars. If you stuff a hobza with crumbs, olives, tomatoes, capers, beans, and onion, you will get a “workman’s lunch”. Do you like a casserole? Then try ross il forn. It consists of rice, tomatoes, and meat.

You can also see the creativity of the local chefs in soup recipes. Aljotta is made from fish, garlic, tomatoes, rice, and marjoram. Minestra will please the vegetarians – it only has the vegetables inside. Timpana definitely has Italian roots – it is pasta, backed with egg and ground beef. Pastizzi, small puff pastries with ricotta cheese and pees, are good as an appetizer. For a dessert, you can buy cannoli, cones with nuts, chocolate, and sprinkles. Among the alcohol drinks, you should try Gozo Country White Wine and local beer Cisk. Those, who prefer coffee and tea, won’t feel left aside, as the Maltese like and can prepare those beverages well. You should also try Kinnie, a local soft drink, made of herbs.