Malta: Food and the National Dish

A Mediterranean crossroads on a small island

Malta's food reflects centuries of passing rule by Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Sicilians, the Knights of St John, and finally the British, each layer leaving something behind rather than replacing what came before. The result is a genuinely Mediterranean cuisine, built on seafood, bread and vegetables, with a distinct Sicilian and North African undertone from Malta's geographic position between the two.

The national dish: stuffat tal-fenek

Stuffat tal-fenek, rabbit slow-cooked in a rich sauce of red wine, garlic and tomato, is Malta's national dish, with roots tracing back to the era of the Knights of St John, who reportedly restricted hunting rights on the island, leaving rabbit as one of the few meats commonly available to ordinary Maltese households. A fenkata, a communal rabbit feast often built around several courses of rabbit prepared different ways, remains a genuine social occasion in Malta today rather than a historical curiosity.

Bread, pastry and the Maltese pantry

Ftira, a distinctive Maltese bread, and pastizzi, small flaky pastries filled with ricotta or mushy peas, anchor much of Malta's everyday eating, sold from dedicated pastizzeriji found across the islands. Fresh seafood, tomatoes, capers and olive oil round out a pantry that leans heavily on Mediterranean staples shared with nearby Sicily.

History behind the dish

Malta's layered rule by successive Mediterranean powers, most notably the Knights of St John from the 16th to 18th centuries, shaped both the island's food and its restrictions: hunting laws under the Knights are widely cited as the reason rabbit became the everyday protein of choice for ordinary Maltese, since larger game was reserved for the nobility. That history is directly credited with elevating rabbit to its current national-dish status.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across Malta:

• Pastizzi — small flaky pastries filled with ricotta cheese or mushy

peas, widely considered Malta's national snack.

• Ftira — a distinctive Maltese bread, often filled with tuna, tomato,

capers and olives for a simple sandwich.

• Lampuki pie — a pie made from lampuki (dolphinfish), caught

seasonally and considered a genuine Maltese delicacy.

• Bragioli — beef olives, thin slices of beef rolled around a savoury

filling and braised.

• Kannoli and imqaret — traditional sweets, the latter a fried,

date-filled pastry.

Drinks

Kinnie, a distinctly Maltese bittersweet soft drink made from bitter oranges and aromatic herbs, is a genuine point of national pride and found nowhere else in quite the same form. Maltese wine, produced on a small scale given the island's size, and local beer round out the country's drinking traditions.

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians will find pastizzi with pea filling, bread and vegetable dishes manageable, though rabbit and seafood are central to much traditional Maltese cooking. Tap water is safe throughout the islands. Attending a proper fenkata, a rabbit feast at a traditional restaurant, is the fullest way to experience Malta's national dish as a genuine social occasion rather than a single plate.

What to take from the table

Stuffat tal-fenek, born from centuries-old hunting restrictions, is the dish that best explains Malta's food history — and a pastizz eaten straight from a paper bag on a Valletta street corner is the easiest way into everything else on the island's table.