Here is another restaurant we have had the pleasure of recently returning to. It is always worth while writing about such experiences because I can compare between meals and knowing the restaurant also enables a deeper insight into the establishment.

We were very well looked after by the helpful Tom, who being Irish, has IRA connections and is therefore not the person you would want to irritate. Suffice to say that one of my very few negative remarks last time round was that we were never given the opportunity of tasting our second bottle of wine, while this time, being six at table and having gone through more bottles than I would like to admit, he presented me with a clean glass to sample each one of them without fail.

I will not dwell upon the service, which was simply excellent throughout and which also culminated in a few drinks on the house at the end for good measure.

Here again, having very recently dined and reviewed this commendable restaurant, I will limit myself to highlights for the purpose of this article.

We all had very satisfactory dishes, both as starters and as main courses. Terrone offers Italian cuisine on a refined scale, thankfully well superior to your average and ubiquitous trattoria style restaurant on every street corner, which frankly has long become rather boring and monotonous.

I personally had fritti misti di pesce as a starter, which although not as spectacular as the caponata I had last time round, was perfectly fine. This was followed by a sole which was so fresh that it was literally just out of the water a few hours before. As discussed at table, sole is rather underrated in Malta. Might it be that many Maltese still associate it to Dover sole and are not even aware that there is also Mediterranean sole which is caught in our waters? In any case, mine was truly excellent and cooked to perfection. It’s rather unique taste and texture was very well enjoyed.

Being a hot Summer’s day we all decided to skip desserts and indulged in countless coffees and drinks.

We enjoy Terrone for a number of reasons. It is cut off from the main and rather congested part of Marsaxlokk. Tom’s pleasant skills and abilities are a great balance of friendliness and efficiency and are masterfully adapted to the client at hand. Their food is excellently prepared and often based on straightforward fresh ingredients as is typical of Italian cuisine, but then bumped up a notch or two in very obvious levels of refinement.

They have a rather extensive choice of Italian wines with very little else except local, a concept so prevalent abroad. I am still not sure if this is the right approach in Malta, with our eclectic expectations in wine. However it did push us to sample a rather nice grecanico, which we otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Also at the end I went for several Amaro Lucano’s which I hadn’t had in many moons and which I simply adore. But noting ends a splendid Italian meal better than a quick sampling of grappas, of which they have many. It really is a good thing that my car knows it’s own way from Marsaxlokk to Burmarrad, as there is no way that we would have made it back home otherwise….