Market Days in Valletta: What to Eat and When to Show Up

Malta's food makes sense the moment you see it stacked on a market table: Sicilian pastry, North African beans, British-era habits and an island's worth of sheep's cheese, all within a few metres of each other. Valletta's markets are small, but they are the shortest route into how Maltese people actually eat.

Know before you go

• Mornings only. Street markets here wind down around lunchtime.
• Sunday is the big day, but the biggest Sunday market is in a fishing village outside the capital, not in it.
• Cash is still king at open-air stalls.
• Sundays and public holidays change hours across the island; confirm before making a special trip.

The covered market

Valletta's restored nineteenth-century market hall on Merchants Street reopened as a food hall and grocer, and it is the most reliable eating in the city centre: a produce and butcher level below, and a spread of stalls above serving everything from fresh pasta to Maltese platters. It is not the most atmospheric market on the island, but it is open when others are not.

The street market

On weekday mornings, stalls fill the length of Merchants Street with clothing, household goods and a scattering of food sellers. It is a working market for city residents rather than a visitor attraction, which is precisely its appeal. On Sundays the larger open-air market traditionally sets up outside the city walls near the ditch; the exact location has shifted over the years, so ask locally.

Marsaxlokk, and why it is worth the drive

Half an hour from Valletta, the fishing harbour at Marsaxlokk lines up its painted luzzu boats behind a market that runs daily and swells on Sundays into the island's most famous. Fish is the point: come before ten, watch the auction-day energy, then eat lunch at the waterfront. It is touristy and it is still excellent.

What to eat, and when

• Year-round: pastizzi, the flaky diamond parcels filled with ricotta or mushy peas, eaten hot and cheap; bigilla, a garlicky broad bean dip; ftira, the ring-shaped Maltese bread whose craft is recognised by UNESCO, split and loaded with tuna, capers, olives and tomato
• Year-round, at their best in spring: gbejniet, small sheep's cheeses from Gozo, sold fresh, dried or peppered
• Late summer into autumn: lampuki, the fish Malta waits for, grilled whole or baked into a pie; prickly pears; the last of the tomatoes being dried
• Spring: strawberries, which get their own village festival in April, and figolli, the almond-filled Easter biscuits cut into fish and lamb shapes
• Winter: oranges and blood oranges, honey rings, and the citrus that gave Malta its old reputation

Do not leave without trying Kinnie, the bitter-orange soft drink that tastes like nothing else and that Maltese people will watch you drink with great interest.

Pace yourself

The good version of this day is a small breakfast, pastizzi mid-morning from a hole in the wall, a long market lunch, and something sweet late. Do not attempt all of it before noon.

Tip: If you only have one market morning, make it Sunday at Marsaxlokk, then take the bus or a taxi back to Valletta for an afternoon in the cool of the Co-Cathedral. Fish first, Caravaggio second, is a very good Maltese Sunday.