Valletta on a Summer’s evening is about as good as it gets on our little island, in so many ways. Since its recent cleanup and reawakening, it offers the visitor heaps of stylish architecture, elegant ambiance, limitless character and is so conducive to leisurely strolls in the soft indirect lighting. It has come such a long way from the previous evening ghost town with the current great choice of restaurants, clubs, cafes and bars, which are open until late.

We were rather pleased when our generous hosts Paul Peter Azzopardiand Kristina Arbočiūtė chose a restaurant in the capital for this occasion.

We started off with a nice pre-dinner drink at Charles Grech on Republic Street, in the form of a bottle of 35 South sauvignon blanc. This was stylishly served along with a range of elegant complimentary snacks, which should be the norm in such venues.

We sat there relaxed and chatting and people watching and were also regaled by a display of several refuse collection trucks, which I assure you is not me being characteristically sarcastic. The impossible has finally hit us, in the form of extremely fancy looking, squeaky clean, creatively painted with astonishing artwork, literally polished and shiny, refuse collection trucks. Many have seen them and many have not. I still haven’t managed to reveal the whole story behind this novel idea, but whoever it is that took this initiative certainly deserves much applause, even only because everyone sitting there outside at Charles Grech was awestruck by this unexpected display.

We then thoroughly enjoyed the walk down to Old Bakery Street and to Capistrano Restaurant which is a small, quaint and cosy establishment Paul and Kris were rather familiar with.

Although every table was taken and the entire service was managed singlehandedly by a very smart and efficient Macedonian gentleman, not much more could be done to improve upon it. It really goes to show that also with staff it is the quality that counts and not the quantity. In many countries such as France, we have often noted that the order of the day in many small restaurants is to have one single person up front, running the show with absolutely no assistance, and we were very pleased to have experienced this in an equally perfect fashion at Capistrano.

The girls decided to continue on white wine and selected an Escudo Rojo suavignon blanc which was crisp, floral and aromatic and very pleasing to the palate. Us old boys opted for red and we went for a Lebanese Chateau Kefraya Les Breteches, which although admittedly is not at all the top wine of this illustrious winery, it is nicely balanced and round, yet fruity and vigorous in a rather direct and straightforward way.

For starters we had a wild mushroom tart with caramelized onions, asparagus and parmigiano which was beautifully presented and although the mushrooms did not seem to be wild, it took nothing away from the goodness of this multi-textured dish.

The girls both had cured salmon with prawns, avocado mousse and squid ink aioli, which was fine and refreshing, however perhaps a tiny bit too salty, which tended to mask the other delicate flavours.

Also a goat’s cheese mousse with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, broad beans and pumpkinseed wafer. This was also cleverly presented and offered so many different colours, textures and flavours.

I found all starters to be elegant, refined and subtle, even perhaps just a tad too subtle, as I am a firm believer that good food should come with good wholesome and ideally rather intense flavours. However this is but a small side note and one I usually only afford to dishes of an undoubtedly high standard.

Both our hosts strongly recommended the pan roasted venison fillet and as it is understandably not a dish we eat every day, they easily convinced us to give it a try. In typical fashion, we had ours as rare as it comes, while they had theirs medium. It was all cooked to perfection and the meat was very simply excellent and irreproachable.

It was plated along with glazed carrots, crushed peas, creamed goat’s cheese and a port wine jus. All these accompaniments were also lovely, however, especially as the jus was quite weak in flavour, I would have preferred much more robust and tasty items and sauces, which would have complimented the venison in a much more suitable manner, than such delicate fare.

Similarly, we were served roast potatoes, shredded cabbage and caponata to share and although all items were individually very pleasant, I found that particularly the caponata was ill matched to the venison, especially as it was rather strong in olives and capers.

But yet again I would like to emphasise that these minor observations take nothing away from the overall quality and enjoyment of the meal.

If we had desserts this is an automatic indicator that we didn’t want the meal to end. We had a lemon pannacotta topped with a mint sheet and with berry coulis, lemon curd and raspberry ice cream. It was relatively light and refined. We also had an apple and walnut cheesecake with apple crumble and green apple sorbet, which was even better and tastier.

At the end of our meal we had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with the pleasant chef Malcolm Mifsud, who is also part of the family of owners. We happily discussed the above and several others points in the most objective, forthright and undefensive of ways, which is so healthy, proactive and refreshing.

We were also very kindly offered a couple of drinks on the house, before we enjoyed our stroll back through the magnificence of Valletta by night, ending a lovely evening, at a good restaurant, amongst very good friends.