A few weeks ago I received an invitation from a certain Andrea Consalvo Rifici, Marketing manager of IGT Malta. He said he was 'keen' on my Diary on Sunday and would like to invite me to a new restaurant which had recently opened in the same building as the Vivaldi in Paceville. Apart from the Cleland & Souchet Wine Café about which I wrote last week, I see that Dolce Sicilia, which started business in a small shop off Depiro street several years ago now has a café and dolceria there too. Dolce Sicilia have done exceedingly well I am happy to say, since  I had interviewed Signor Giardina, a Sicilian of a certain age, who had left his family to come and work here and whose attitude to customers contributed greatly to the success of the business.

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Now my relation with food is quite schizophrenic. One moment I go for a whole week without eating carbs but then the following week I am eating half a dozen pieces of toast, with butter in every hole and half an inch of marmalade on top. I will go through a packet of decent biscuits in 15 minutes and once I open a box of chocolates, big or small it is demolished in no time. I repent and say a dozen mea culpas for the next two days and  eat fruit and nothing else but then, the following day I succumb to half a dozen pastizzi or Maltese bread - hobs biz-zejt. What is more delicious I ask but more fattening? No sooner do I resolve to stay away from fat inducing food for a while when an invitation invariably arrives and I persuade myself that just because of a few spare tyres why should I give up one of the few pleasures I have left in life?

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I read somewhere that the diet industry runs into $33-billion-a-year, the cosmetics industry into $20 billion and the cosmetic surgery industry to $300-million.  All this has to do with our unconscious anxieties. Thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose 10 to 15 pounds than achieve any other goal. I have heard the ultra ambitious Hillary Clinton on TV declare that she tells God "Please let me be thin!" But she knows only too well that God is not going to solve anyone's weight problem. She also knows that politicking means picking your food carefully and she swears by the weight-loss power of hot peppers, keeping red pepper flakes on hand when on the road. Never tried that I have to say. Perhaps I should.

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So, to go back to eating rather than dieting , not one to turn my nose up at a meal which promises to be good, I accepted Andrea's invitation  and we met at L'Altro Orso.  

He told me that the owners of the restaurant, the chef Salvatore Pavone and his wife, very young son and even extended family some months ago had decided to pack everything up, including chairs and tables, and had come to open the restaurant here. They had a very successful restaurant by the same name in Messina. Evidence that the existence of this restaurant and its success are not merely heresay I checked this. I suffer from the same syndrome as St Thomas. I want evidence, good evidence. And yes it is listed in Gambero Rosso which began publication in 1990 and which has since added a TV channel, Gambero Rosso Channel broadcast by Sky Italia.  There is also a cooking school, wine bar and professional and educational activities. Their Vini d'Italia preceded their guide to restaurants in Italy and both are now available digitally.

 In spite of this evident success business in Messina was fast deteriorating because of the economic climate in Italy. So the family, which had heard some good reports about Malta, decided  to move here, lock, stock and barrel, as they say.

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In Messina L'Altro Orso was located a little away from the centre in a Palazzo stile Liberty, in short Art Nouveau style. As Andrea explained. "It was the sort of restaurant in which one felt at home; as if you were dining at friends rather than at a restaurant."

I met the chef-patron Salvatore Pavone who cooks Sicilian dishes but which he 'revisits' regularly. He is a creator and is not happy to produce the same traditional dishes over and over again. So he thinks up new ways of serving Sicilian food. He told me that his career started when he was a 14-year-old and soon he was organizing banquets, dinners and food to accompany religious events. He says that of course we need food to live but we should also experience emotion with every dish we eat: "this is what we try to achieve in our kitchen.   We try not to repeat the same dish. Pleasure is rarely experienced the same way twice or 'like the first time.' The menu is based on traditional Sicilian food. At home we say "parla come mangi" so since we speak Sicilian then the food too, is Sicilian,"  

I don't like cooking dishes which are 'tired' or simply fashionable. My aim is for patrons to come and enjoy themselves in a convivial ambience and exchange ideas and news over a good glass of wine and of course, good food."

Andrea proposed a tasting menu and so the feast began. Grilled octopus with light lemon juice brine and roasted pepper sauce; a small portion of vegetable cous cous cooked in chilli; ravioli filled with lemon and seafood ricotta; spaghettoni in tomato sauce served with eggplant; Rib eye filled with gorgonzola cheese, smoked ham and a red variety chicory, an inventive winner of a dish.  I shall not dwell on the details of each dish but simply observe that I enjoyed each one of them.

At this point, although portions were relatively small (my choice) since it was a tasting menu, I begged for the waiter to stop serving me food. I had eaten enough. Andrea insisted I taste at least one dessert. Weak-willed and being the kind that a meal simply has to end with dessert, I succumbed. He suggested Coppa dell'Orso and I did not know what to expect. An Italian variation of that well known dessert Eton Mess perhaps? And when it arrived, having told Andrea that I would only eat half of it, I once again succumbed and ate every crumb. It was a special trest. When I expressed sheer delight he took me to the kitchen where I met Signora Pavone who showed me how the delumptious Coppa dell'Orso is made, and she gave me a private demonstration in the kitchen.

The secret to its lightness is in the ingredients: a chocolate cake made with no flour, a chocolate sauce made with the best chocolate and home-made ice-cream.

Signor Pavone took great pride in opening the fridges for me. Everything was beautifully organized and hygiene a priority.

I enjoyed the food which was 'different.' I hope they will do well. I found the restaurant to be too big and unless it is filled with people somewhat lacking in ambience. I wonder why they did not start with a smaller place to begin with. I liked the tablecloths embroidered with handmade crosstitch. Where will you find that these days of mass production? The service was excellent. Italians make good waiters because they do not look down upon serving others as so many locals do. They go out of their way to please the patron and share your delight when you are delighted and try to make amends if you are not. They want satisfied customers who will return.

I am so glad I did not help myself to the homemade bread which looked so enticing at the beginning of the meal. I would never have got through so much food otherwise.

Italians like to linger over their meals. To them a meal is a ritual not just a matter of stuffing yourself with food 'on the go'. 

Parking at the Vivaldi carpark comes with the compliments of the restaurant which is a luxury worth considering in Paceville where parking in the street is almost impossible. L'Altro Orso is certainly worth a try. If patrons are served the same standard of dishes which I was served then I have little doubt that they will leave the place happy.