As Fontanella celebrates its 50th year, LOUISETTE SANT MANDUCA tells Fiona Galea Debono how she created a slice of history.

“Well, if you don’t mess up your clothes with chocolate, you haven’t been to Fontanella,” quips Louisette Sant Manduca, noticing a faint brown stain on her smart, powder-blue outfit.

Half a century ago, the entrepreneurial young mother of two decided to open her private, underused garden, perched on the bastions opposite her Mdina home, and turn it into a coffee shop just as a “hobby”.

Now, as she celebrates the 50th year of Fontanella, Sant Manduca may not be baking all the delightful treats herself any more but her popular, velvety chocolate cake and airy strawberry meringue are still bestseller menu staples – and the stain on her scarf is proof of that.

The only difference is that more desserts are being made to meet the massive influx of tourists to Fontanella’s.

It was not always that way, recalls Sant Manduca, today a great-grandmother.

“My children were at school and I decided to do something. I always wondered why the garden remained closed, so I invented this coffee shop. Everyone was against me: ‘No, we do not do this sort of thing’,” says Sant Manduca.

Back in 1975, her supportive father, who helped her out in her new venture, was on the tourism board. It was then made up of volunteers, apart from the chairman. When told about his daughter’s plans, the chairman had advised her father to tell her “not to spend too much money on it because the tourist industry is not very sound”.

Sant Manduca duly “ignored” these opinions. And with the 1980s came the tourism boom.

Today, Fontanella – with its iconic panoramic view of the island, at times even including Sicily’s Mount Etna – also opens for dinner to meet the demand as it morphs into a bistro/wine bar.

Gone are the days when it used to close at 6pm because there was “no movement” in Mdina after that time.

Sant Manduca sees the surrounding competition as positive.

“Things have changed and we moved with the times,” she says, without a sense of nostalgia or a longing for the past.

Louisette Sant Manduca has not hung up her apron as Fontanella celebrates its 50th year in 2025. Photo: Karl Andrew Micallef

And some things have remained the same. Saturdays and Sundays are still a fixed date for the locals, while retired couples make it a routine weekly outing.

Few have not stored fond memories of afternoon tea and toast, pastizzi, sandwiches and a slab of delectable cake while braving a windy day to enjoy the terrace’s unique view.

Fontanella's iconic terrace on a beautiful sunny day.

The skyline may be somewhat different today, with high-rise buildings here and there, but Sant Manduca puts it down to progress and accepts change, pointing out that “we still have some fields beneath us”.

While she is now assisted by around 30 staff from just three in the early days, she still goes down into the kitchen in the cellars to see what is going on and gets her hands dirty if required.

The chocolate stain also testifies to her involvement and hands-on approach in what began as a “small-scale” business, with her sister as secretary.

They were fun times, when Sant Manduca thought she would merely set up a few tables and get a couple of helpers, never intending to “be something big” or expecting a large amount of tourists.

Always at the helm, she would bake the cakes herself, following her own recipes and using what she considered to be the best ingredients.

“I always loved baking. I would take my cakes home to my mother and my late brother would say: “This is what they eat in heaven, I am sure.”

Now in her late 70s, she has not hung up her apron. The traditional Christmas chestnut and cocoa drink imbuljuta is bubbling on the menu and she makes it at home herself.

But, mainly, she still takes care of the more arid accounts, much to her dismay.

Such is her ongoing commitment that Sant Manduca jokingly warns her family: “I will probably die in my little office here; you will find me dead over there,” she points, “because I am always around – unless I am in Rome, which I love.

Louisette Sant Manduca still goes down into the kitchen in the cellars to see what is going on and gets her hands dirty if required.

“I still do not have enough hours in my day. I am here by 10am, telling people what to do with the support of my staff.”

The flood of tourism has been the biggest change she has experienced over the last half century and she looks back at the time when the café was mostly frequented by Maltese and to the queues that now sometimes form along the fortifications.

“One time, I came in and checked with our person at the door whether he was sure there were no places for the people waiting outside. A gentleman stepped in and said: ‘Madam, we have been here before you…’,” she laughed. Little did he know the petite enquiring woman was the boss. He apologised and they made friends.

It is little anecdotes like these that mark the milestones of Fontanella’s 50 years: Sant Manduca recalls the days when students from St Dorothy’s School for girls, next door, would scale the common wall, which was not too high, for an “escape” – and to sin on chocolate cake.

Things have changed and we have moved with the times- Louisette Sant Manduca

“When the nun came round looking for them one time, I had to hide them behind the oven. I did not want to lie to her and I did not want to give them away, so I just sort of nodded my head and did not say anything.”

Sant Manduca recalls when a lady thanked her for “sharing her garden with us”; and a Canadian customer once called the landline connected to her home at 3am, asking if she would send over a chocolate cake to Canada for the wedding of his brother, who had tasted it while on holiday and considered it a “wonderful experience”.

It never took off because the freight was too expensive. Fontanella is too busy to export but it continues to deliver its cakes to households around Malta to mark their own special occasions five decades down the line.