Grain
167, Merchants Street, Valletta
Tel: 2235 4167

Food: 7/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 9/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

There are several belief systems that include the notion of incarnation. They consider this life to be one of many and that death leads us to our next incarnation. In one such life, if this turned out to be the truth behind all divine and ineffable plans for us, I would like to be an artist. It’s not like any belief system allows one to choose one’s next life with such specificity but what’s the harm in hoping?

I’d do abstracts in the vein of Rothko’s canon and I’d write these ambitious, confusing, mostly abstruse artist statements that precede every exhibition. My work would be described as my ability to capture the zeitgeist of something or other, revealing some elusive emotion in a fleeting/ephemeral/ethereal way… The statement would ramble on in a way that tells its audience to stop reading, just step inside, and look at the darned paintings.

I’d do this simply to stand at a distance and enjoy watching the discomfort of all those who stand there and read it, too ashamed to let on that they have no idea what, in the name of all that is holy, is being conveyed via this odd sequence of words.

Of course, I’m not dismissing context. I’m simply at odds with anything that requires a contrived, pretentious or downright futile attempt to describe it by way of a heavily concealed apology.

This is ever-present in the world of food and drink. The best Bordeaux vintages hardly have a single word printed on the label other than the name of the château. Vastly inferior wines, on the other hand, rant on about the colour of the sunset visible from between the giant tanks of the factory that produces them.

Similarly, restaurants launched by celebrity chefs are described by their army of copywriters in a way that makes one wonder whether our olfactory has anything to do with eating after all. In the meantime, the best bistros in the world make do with a menu scrawled on a chalkboard as the sum total of their vocabulary.

I pondered this while reading the introduction of the menu to Grain, in Valletta. In brief, it states that: Tailors are detail-oriented and respectful of the materials they use. They cut along the grain of their fabrics to prevent fraying. The restaurant is in­spired by this attention and devotes it to conveying food in a way that makes the best of the ingredients that nature has to offer. Our chef is not an AI or a robot.

I used a fraction of the words they did in the interest of brevity but that’s the spirit of things. As usual, the part of me that appre­ciates effort had to shore up its defences against the onslaught of the other part – the cynic. Of course, it’s lovely to be inspired by sartorial craft and to pay tribute to its history of attention to the minutest detail. On the other hand, the cynic argued, what restaurant worth its salt would not be detailed in its respect, preparation and presentation of fresh ingredients? Can’t one do one’s best efforts and let the food do all the talking?

The restaurant itself is beautiful enough, even if the references to couture in the decor do need a little bit of explaining if you’re very literally inclined. It’s within a wonderfully restored palazzo that’s been turned into a hotel, so everything about it feels premium.

Even if I turned up dressed like I’d escaped a pool party in Me­dellin, we were welcomed and treated like royalty, and seen to our table by a very polite young lady who saw to us all evening. I appreciate continuity of service, and at this level one has to expect it.

With a couple of tiny tweaks, Grain has all the makings of the special place you escape to when you’re in the city

She told us that they encourage sharing dishes and that all wines were served by the glass. I like this style of dining. It encourages ad­venturous eaters to dip into dishes and wines they might not have ordered otherwise.

The menu reveals a slightly different story. There are four ‘snacks’, four items of charcuterie and a dozen main courses. I asked how many dishes they recommended and our waitress said four would be good; which essentially left us with two starters and two main courses anyway.

I wasn’t about to quibble with the system. The restaurant is quite new and they have time to tweak the menu. I was all for tasting the food so I asked the better half to pick two starters and a main course and then I added another starter and main course to make a total of five dishes. We added a glass of wine each from a menu that seems to have been curated by the price of the glass. There are 20 wines in total so picking your liquids isn’t a tough call.

Waiting for your food is a pleasant experience within the pretty dining space and with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong crooning their tour of the Ameri­can songbook. We even had some (reheated) ftira, a rather sweet and very tasty kunserva, and some gorgeous marinated olives to keep us company.

Our first courses were served together. We’d left out the panisse with capers, raisins and parmesan because it sounded like a little too much intensity to start with. The first I tucked into was a ricotta dish, with the cheese served in the centre and seasoned with basil and crunch from toasted nuts and seeds. Slices of anchovy fillet topped the tower.

You’d expect salt from the bite that includes the anchovy but the ricotta itself was excessively salted, so while tiny bites work, it is a tiring course to finish so early on. The white fish beignet is lovely and served with a mild-mannered wasabi mayonnaise. The exterior is similar to that of a croquette and inside is a soft and delicately seasoned mash of fishy flesh.

The chicken and hamhock fritter is also a croquette. It is oily and it is salty but then there’s little one can do to a chicken and ham fritter to turn it into a dish with fine dining aspirations.

The portions are really the right size for two to share. We divvied everything down the middle and wound up with three snack-sized bites that gave us the experience without overloading us with food. So that’s why they call their starters ‘snacks’.

As we waited for our main courses, our privilege of being the only two people in the restaurant was revoked. An unfairly good-looking young couple sat at another table, celebrating the birthday of one of them. I’m sure that special occasions are not the intent of having such a beautiful restaurant in such a clever location.

My reverie was put on hold with the arrival of our main courses. They look splendid. The black lasagne is exceptional. The pasta itself is finely done and it is layered with squid and its own sauce, with pumpkin seed for crunch. There’s just the right amount of salt this time, the squid’s delicate flavour is ever-present, and there is a persistent, faint spice on the finish from the nduja. I looked in the direction I believed the kitchen to be and tipped my imagi­nary hat in the chef’s direction.

The beef yakitori is not a yakitori in form but has all the right flavours. It’s a little sweet, it’s a little sour, there’s plenty of peanut in the dressing and this is offset with fermented bean, possibly from miso. There are more pine nuts and pumpkin seed for added texture and, for whatever reason, there are three, baked onion rings on top. The beef is an excellent cut and cooked to perfection.

We paid €50 for the food and €20 for four glasses of wine. Our mistake – a bottle would have been more economical and I always underestimate my capacity to consume fermented liquids. At this level, I suppose the price is right.

If I had a say, I’d bump the snacks up a notch to meet the main courses and balance the experience a little. With a couple of tiny tweaks, Grain has all the makings of the special place you escape to when you’re in the city and want some peace and quiet. But then Valletta is packed with little eateries and some aren’t half bad. For it to be the one I consistently pick, a little more needs to be done to match their own introductory statement with cleverness on the menu that properly stands out.