On the Last Tuesday of January the sommelier of Carnaby Wines and the chef at Palazzo Santa Rosa got together for a challenge – to create world class food, inspired by the Maltese cuisine fused with the Spanish cuisine to match rare and prestigious Spanish wines chosen by the sommelier, Silvio Tonna.

Little did they know that the event was going to be such a huge success. The high turn out and the fun had by all became the catalyst to turn this one off event into a regular monthly meeting called The Last Tuesday Club. Every last Tuesday of every month, various wine handlers will present excellent wines and the chefs at Palazzo Santa Rosa will create perfectly matched gourmet food.

For the evening of Tuesday 27 February, Charles Grech Limited, the long established Wine and Spirits merchant will be providing the wines for the event. Charles Grech’s Brian Mifsud opted for a range of Italian Wines that explore many regions from the very north down to Sicily. “We spent days discussing the wines we should present. Charles Grech handle a vast selection of wines yet for this occasion we wanted to have a theme and therefore we selected wines from various Italian regions. The twist to all this is that all the wines are produced by the same family and therefore this is another running theme throughout the evening.”

The food for the evening will be decidedly Italian; the wine maker himself suggested the wines and the food that goes with the wine so from the culinary perspective the job is far easier this time than the first time round. ”The beauty of the Italian cuisine is in its simplicity; it matches the ethos of Palazzo Santa Rosa perfectly. We have a simple cuisine that prides itself on the quality of the natural products. For us this is an opportunity to show off our produce. At Palazzo Santa Rosa we grow most of our vegetables organically on our own land; we do not use frozen meats or vegetables and certainly would never consider using artificial products. That is why we import our own organic vanilla from Africa, our organic saffron from Kashmir, our coffee exclusively from Italy. We only source the best raw materials. We go as far as importing the perfect wood for our smoker and for our wood fired oven,” commented the chef of Palazzo Santa Rosa.

The next stage of this project is to build a website that allows people to access the information about each evening. “My idea has always been that people should be able to go home and recreate the evening in their home, using the recipes that we create for the evening and the wines they have tasted for the evening so for us having a point of reference for our guests where they can order the wines and download the recipes is a continuation of the service they buy into when they come to the Last Tuesday Club Dinners,” commented Claude Camilleri.

The Last Tuesday Club will meet on Tuesday at Palazzo Santa Rosa in Mistra Bay. Aperitifs start at 8pm and dinner starts at 8.30pm. To book a table you can call Palazzo Santa Rosa on 21582737 or email [email protected]

For more information you can call Claude Camilleri at Palazzo Santa Rosa on 21582737.