Many people have left Malta “for good” only to return years later. One such person is Claude Camilleri who has had many careers in his life, and is now trying his hand at being a restaurateur. Josanne Cassar spoke to him over lunch at his restaurant Palazzo Santa Rosa
CURRICULUM VITAE
• Sound engineer
• Taught engineering and ran sound studios in London and Milan
• Documentary producer
• Investments Banker
In this series, I’ve eaten in many places, but never has someone come up with the idea of setting up a table by the sea. That’s what Claude Camilleri, who has just taken over Palazzo Santa Rosa, has done for this interview.
At this time of year, Mistra Bay is idyllic with no crowds and peaceful quiet. The hint of storm clouds on the horizon only serves to give the whole place a dramatic feel.
Claude has taken over this restaurant since coming back to Malta after an absence of 25 years. His parents are both deceased and for the moment he is living in their home in Marsa. Through an uncanny coincidence, it turns out that he and our photographer were old schoolmates. That’s Malta for you.
“I’ve been planning this for two years, but I was very scared because I wasn’t sure whether I would stick it or not. However, I’ve been blessed with this amazing location.”
Apart from breathing new life into the place, he is determined to introduce some innovations, such as building an authentic wood-fired stone oven to bake pizzas and a smoke house to smoke their own sausage.
“I’m after the Verace Pizza Napolitana certification which requires you to use a certain type of flour, fresh tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella.”
But his main mission is “to bring Maltese food into the 21st century”, using organic farming. Having researched it thoroughly, Claude is convinced that our specialities can be served in a more sophisticated way if we start with fantastic ingredients.
“Our cuisine has always been considered ‘cucina povera’ but it doesn’t have to be.
Throughout southern Europe, food has been influenced by Arabic cuisine. However in Malta, our cuisine has more depth because of other influences. The trick is to present it in a more stylish way, to remove it from its ‘vulgar’ connotations.”
If you had to ask Claude what his job is, he would tell you he is really an investments banker. So how did he go from mergers and acquisitions to running a restaurant?
“I’m not a professional chef but I inherited the cooking gene from my parents, which I’ve perfected over the years. I’ve spent the last 10-15 years of my life travelling just for food. I suppose I came to a point when I just wanted to enjoy my life. I had the choice of opening the restaurant here or in Denmark, where I was living for the last four years. My wife is Danish and I don’t think she would live in Malta permanently because this is a very alien culture for her. What tipped it over was the location, when she saw it she said: ‘this is it, you’ve got to do it Claude.’ She was right. You can’t get this view in London or Denmark.”
His life has been colourful to say the least and he describes it in bits and spurts making it difficult to understand the chronology.
“In Monaco and Hamburg, I was a risk analyst, I was a journalist for a while for a very odd reason because to start off I was a sound engineer. I have a degree in philosophy – because originally I was studying to become a priest…”
Confused?
Yes, so am I. So I ask him to start from the beginning.
We establish that he was born here, and was a boarder at Savio College intending to become a Salesian – mostly because he had a strong urge to leave the island. He was sent to Denmark to study philosophy but was sent back to Malta for another two years of training.
His time as a novice in Ireland taught him a lot about himself. “Poverty and chastity were never a problem – it was the obedience part I had trouble with”, he quips.
“What I discovered is that when you have nothing, then your spirituality really is complete. Years later, in Monaco, I lived on a yacht with servants and a fancy car…but something was missing.”
He had a love of music and helped David Vella build the Temple recording studio nearby, but he was not happy.
“Malta in those days was a funny, weird place to be in – you would be stopped by the police for no reason. I was with Tan-Numri, taking photos during a demonstration and they beat the living daylights out of me. …I ended up with physical problems, internal bleeding and a brain haemorrhage. My friends persuaded me to leave, so I went to Australia where I read for a degree in engineering and became a sound engineer. I went to England to teach engineering, got married there, had children and got divorced. I’ve had lots of misfortune including going through an acrimonious divorce – that really screws you up. I started my own college, ending up with five recording studios in London and Milan.”
Here I had to stop and question: your own college? Five recording studios? How could this be?
“You could do this at the time because the industry was not regulated,” he adds in answer to the look of scepticism on my face.
When it all became too much, he signed away the studios to the rest of the employees and went AWOL, (absent without leave) as he describes it.
“The Salesians taught me not to be materialistic. I never do anything just for the money – that doesn’t motivate me. I think I just got lucky. I’m very stubborn and if I put something in my head, I won’t sleep until I do it. But having created a successful business, I decided to study for my MBA. It was like a sabbatical after all those ungodly hours. According to the psychometric test they gave me, I am basically unemployable!” He hoots at this, relishing the irony.
After this he became an investments banker for three years, but he hated it. It did, however, lead him into a new field when someone asked him to present a news clip from Brussels.
“I spent three hours in the restroom, ill to my stomach. I just could not do it. However, they asked me to do it again, and eventually I got hooked on it. By time, I decided to concentrate more on food-related stories and they did quite well.”
This is an understatement for he actually produced and presented news stories for various international networks, including Euronews.
“I’m lucky,” he admits. “But I’m also a restless soul. Will I be here ten years down the line? I don’t know but I really want to get a first Michelin star. At the moment I feel like a lone voice in the desert when it comes to Maltese cuisine. We have become a nation of pot noodles and frozen pizzas! Even the things they use in restaurants – you read the instructions and it’s scary – you add water and end up with vanilla ice cream! I’m not one to talk because I’m fat. I love eating but at least I don’t eat hydrogenated fats, colours and preservatives. I’m out in the countryside picking bitter almonds so I don’t use essence. Nature has all the answers to all our problems. I know I sound like a hippie, but I’m no health freak. Everything we serve here we make ourselves, such as gbejniet, ricotta and mozzarella.”
To prove his point he seems determined to offer me a sample from his entire menu. The food appears at leisure, in small portions so you get a taste of everything without feeling full.
We start off with bigilla, Maltese sausage (from ta’ Gori), olive and anchovy tapanade and soft gbejniet served in their original containers. Breadsticks and crackers with cumin round off these starters.
Claude is an entertaining raconteur, although some of his expressive phrases are unprintable. He loves to lapse into the different accents which he has picked up along the way.
“I’m manic sometimes, especially when I’m tired. I used to be much more volatile, but having lived in Denmark with a Danish woman….ahh, they are so placid! She is calm, and when I get manic, she starts laughing, which is nice because I realise how pathetic I am.
So age and the Danish environment have mellowed me out.”
The next course is ravioli with fidloqqom (borage, a wild weed,) served with extra virgin olive oil and sage.
Every dish in the menu is described in witty detail (“first of all this dish is so pretty”) with an explanation of its origins
To clean our palate there arrived a tomato jelly with vanilla and mint leaf. Claude loves using wild herbs, many of which he picks himself from this area.
“In some establishments, when you order a Caesar’s salad, it’s like they’ve cleared the entire contents of the refrigerator onto your plate. Why do they put shredded red cabbage in everything? No – it should be Romaine lettuce!” he declares.
The courses keep coming and so does his running commentary – Fillet of beef, seared from the outside only and still very red – “meat should always be served medium to rare…anything more is a sacrilege,” Claude says.
We go indoors because of the impending rain and are served with Spanish bream, very lightly cooked with fennel.
This has to be the longest lunch I’ve ever had and just when I think I really need to leave, dessert is served. A feast for the senses (forget about the waistline): light mqaret, homemade real vanilla ice cream, organic strawberries, helwa tat-tork and bread pudding.
Throughout, Claude has described in loving detail how each single dish has been made, with the knowledge of someone who knows his food. He leans back in his chair with quiet satisfaction.
“Someone recently read my stars and they said you ‘will be embarking on a new project offering something new on the market’. Normally I don’t believe in them, but know I’m beginning to wonder!”