A New Seafood Restaurant Is Bringing Some Imagination to Marsaxlokk

Opening a seafood restaurant in Marsaxlokk is a little like opening a bakery in Paris. You’re certainly not short of competition. So when somewhere new comes along, it helps to have something more interesting up your sleeve than a decent plate of calamari.

The Quay Restaurant, which opened earlier this October in the former premises of Roots Restaurant, is a small, intimate and relatively understated spot on the waterfront. The cooking, however, is considerably more ambitious than the surroundings might suggest.

 

Behind the kitchen is head chef Kenneth Pace, a name that will be familiar to anyone who has followed Malta’s restaurant scene over the years. His experience includes established restaurants such as Bacchus, and at The Quay, he’s putting his own interpretation on Mediterranean cooking.

The menu is predominantly seafood, as you’d expect in Malta’s best-known fishing village, but Pace clearly enjoys playing with ingredients, textures and presentation. There are foams, purées, veloutés and enough colour on the plates to suggest that someone in the kitchen takes their garnishing rather seriously. Fortunately, there’s more happening here than decorative enthusiasm.

A Rather Interesting Start

We began with the scallop ceviche, served with yuzu, soy, lime cloud and mango salad. Delicate slices of scallop sat beneath a light, foamy dressing, scattered with little pieces of mango, fresh herbs and edible flowers. It’s a thoughtful combination, with citrus, sweetness and savoury elements all working around the scallop rather than competing with it.

 

The black tempura prawn skewers were one of my favourites. Three prawns arrived in a striking black coating, balanced over a bright green pea and mint velouté, with lime mayonnaise and little pearls of roe. The batter was remarkably light and crisp, allowing the prawns to remain the focus. I could personally have done without the roe, but I enjoyed the dish considerably more than I expected to. The contrast between the delicate crunch and smooth, fresh-tasting velouté was particularly good.

 

Next, the glazed Gozo octopus tentacle, served with cannellini bean cream and clams. A substantial arrangement of curled, charred octopus and open clams sat in a pale, creamy sauce, with a few colourful finishing touches. It’s a more considered treatment of a familiar Mediterranean ingredient, bringing together seafood, legumes and a little smokiness without losing sight of what the dish is supposed to be about.

 

Then came the quail croquette, and this was hardly your average bite-sized croquette. A generously proportioned, deeply golden cylinder arrived over fig compote and a chèvre fondue, finished with walnut oil. The presentation was almost architectural. What interested me most was the combination of rich, savoury quail with the sweetness of fig and the tang of goat’s cheese. It’s the sort of dish that could easily become unnecessarily complicated, but there was a clear idea behind it.

Pasta With a Personality

The orecchiette with clams, broccoli and chilli oil was another standout for me, and probably one of the dishes I’d be most inclined to order again. The little pasta shells were surrounded by clams and broccoli in a vivid green sauce, with chilli oil providing a welcome bit of warmth.

It’s a familiar combination in principle, but there’s something particularly satisfying about the way the pasta, shellfish and greens come together. Of all the elaborate compositions on the table, this was perhaps the one that needed the least explanation. Really enjoyable.

 

The octopus and cod ravioli took things in a different direction entirely. Dark squid-ink pasta parcels were arranged over bright pumpkin purée and finished with champagne foam and fresh herbs. Visually, it’s one of the more dramatic dishes on the menu, with that almost-black pasta against the orange pumpkin.

The ravioli were nicely filled, and I liked the interplay between the seafood filling and the sweetness of the pumpkin. Once again, there’s quite a lot happening on the plate, but Pace has clearly given thought to how the different components work together.

And Then, Rabbit

Seafood might be the main attraction, but The Quay also makes room for other Mediterranean favourites. The rabbit belly roulade is a good example of how the kitchen approaches something more traditional.

Two wonderfully substantial pieces of rabbit arrived wrapped in speck, revealing a tightly packed filling, with celeriac purée, pickled celery and a generous pool of dark rabbit jus. This was a hearty, earthy dish, and quite a departure from the lighter seafood courses that preceded it.

The rich jus gave everything a deeper, more savoury character, while the celeriac and pickled celery offered a little contrast. It’s a sizeable plate, too. After several courses involving foams and carefully arranged seafood, there was something rather reassuring about a proper, substantial serving of rabbit.

Occasionally, Pace’s enthusiasm for combining ingredients means there’s rather a lot happening on one plate, and you do wonder whether a component or two could have been left off. But for the most part, the combinations work, and there’s genuine thought behind the cooking.

Small restaurant. Big ideas.

The Quay Restaurant
67 Xatt is-Sajjieda
Marsaxlokk