The best pastizzi counter in Malta (2021 update)

Let’s talk about the pastizzi problem

Everyone who comes to Malta gets told to eat pastizzi. Every travel guide mentions them. The airport has a pastizzi stall. The hotel breakfast buffet has them. Every bakery in every village has them.

The problem is that there is a vast difference between a good pastizzi and a mediocre one, and the mediocre ones significantly outnumber the good ones. The average tourist, having been told to eat pastizzi, eats three of the mediocre kind from a hotel buffet, decides they’re fine but not exciting, and moves on. This is a tragedy, because a really good pastizzi — hot from the oven, the pastry genuinely flaky and yielding, the filling correct — is one of the best cheap food experiences in the Mediterranean.

In spring 2021, we spent a week eating as many pastizzi as reasonably possible. Here’s what we found.

What a pastizzi actually is

Two varieties exist and they are both correct:

Pastizz tal-irkotta — the ricotta version. The filling is a simple mix of ricotta cheese, eggs, salt and fresh parsley. The outer pastry should be flaky-layered, like a rough croissant, not smooth. The shape is oval, sort of diamond-ish. This is the original.

Pastizz tal-piżelli — the mushy peas version. Green split peas, slow-cooked to a thick paste with onion and sometimes a little pepper. The shape is typically round (to distinguish it from the ricotta version). The pastry can be the same flaky variety or the smoother, slightly doughy version found in some bakeries. Both are legitimate.

A hot pastizzi from the oven costs between 20 cents and 50 cents, depending on the bakery and whether you’re in a tourist area. If you’re paying more than 70 cents you’re in a tourist trap.

Our methodology (such as it is)

We prioritised:

• Temperature (fresh from the oven beats reheated)
• Pastry texture (should shatter when you bite it, not bend)
• Filling ratio (should go all the way through, not just a disappointment at the centre)
• Filling flavour (ricotta should be fresh and slightly sweet; peas should be savoury and not watery)

We ate at least two pastizzi at each location, ideally one of each variety, ideally within the first 20 minutes after they came out of the oven.

The counters, ranked

1. Crystal Palace, Rabat

This is the one most Maltese will name first, and they are correct. Crystal Palace is a village bar in Rabat that makes pastizzi at an extraordinary rate — the ovens run continuously — and gets them right almost every time. The flakiness is in another league from what you’ll find in tourist-facing bakeries. The ricotta filling is correctly seasoned. The peas version is the best we tried anywhere.

Crystal Palace is not in a tourist neighbourhood. It’s a local bar where old men drink coffee and watch football. You order at the counter, you eat standing up or on a plastic chair outside, and you pay whatever the price on the board says. Get there before 10am for the first batch of the day.

Address: 108 St Paul Street, Rabat (a five-minute walk from the Mdina gate).

2. Is-Serkin, Valletta

Is-Serkin is a tiny hole-in-the-wall on Merchants Street in Valletta, and the queue that forms outside it mid-morning is not accidental. The pastizzi here lean toward the slightly thicker, doughier pastry rather than the ultra-flaky kind — some people prefer this, particularly for the peas version, which holds together better with a sturdier casing.

The advantage of Is-Serkin is location: you can eat here on a walking tour of Valletta without going out of your way. The disadvantage is that it gets very busy and the turnover means you occasionally get one that’s been sitting for 15 minutes longer than ideal.

Address: Merchants Street, Valletta (near the Market).

3. Café Jubilee, Valletta

Café Jubilee on Republic Street is a sit-down café rather than a counter, which means the pastizzi come with a table, a coffee, and a slightly inflated price (around 80 cents each, which is the tourist premium). They are, however, genuinely good — consistently made, consistently hot, the ricotta version with a lightness the tourist-trap alternatives don’t achieve.

If you want pastizzi as part of a proper café breakfast in Valletta rather than a street-corner experience, Jubilee is the honest recommendation.

4. Busy Bee, Bugibba

Bugibba is not the most glamorous location for food, but Busy Bee has been making pastizzi for decades and has a devoted local following. The mushy peas version here is particularly good — heavier, more substantial, with a flavour that suggests the peas have been cooking longer than anywhere else.

If you’re in the north of Malta (Bugibba, St Paul’s Bay, Mellieha) and the urge strikes, Busy Bee is the answer.

5. Maxokk Bakery, Xaghra (Gozo)

Gozo has its own pastizzi culture, and Maxokk in Xaghra is the island’s answer to Crystal Palace. The bakery is famous primarily for its ftajjar (Maltese flatbread), but the pastizzi are made to the same standard. Smaller quantities are produced here than on Malta, which means they’re more reliably fresh.

If you’re doing a day in Gozo — particularly if your route takes you to Ggantija or the salt pans — a Maxokk stop is worth a detour.

What to avoid

Pastizzi on Republic Street in Valletta: they exist, they’re usually fine, but they’ve been sitting since morning. The cafés that put them in the window at 9am and sell them until 4pm are the definition of mediocre.

Hotel buffet pastizzi: if you have already eaten these and thought “this is what the fuss is about,” please eat one at Crystal Palace before making a final judgment.

Pastizzi sold near cruise ship docks: these are made in industrial quantities and kept warm in display cases. They’re food. They’re not the thing.

The correct way to eat pastizzi

Hot, with your hands, ideally outside. The pastry will shatter and send a small snowfall of flakes down your shirt. This is normal and unavoidable. Do not eat them with cutlery. Do not eat them cold (they become chewy and slightly disappointing).

Coffee on the side is traditional. Black coffee or a kapuċċin (a Maltese cappuccino, smaller and stronger than the Italian kind).

One pastizz costs between 20 and 50 cents. Two pastizzi and a coffee is a perfectly adequate breakfast for under €2. This is, relative to what breakfast costs in most of Europe, almost embarrassingly good value.

The broader point about Maltese street food

Pastizzi are the most famous item in Malta’s street food repertoire, but they exist alongside qassatat (a closed pie, usually with spinach and anchovies, or ricotta), ħobż biż-żejt (bread rubbed with tomato paste, olive oil, and various toppings), and ftira (the flatbread sandwich, stuffed with tuna, caper, and olives, or with local cheeselets and sun-dried tomatoes).

None of these are expensive. None of them require a restaurant or a reservation. All of them taste better eaten on a Valletta street corner than on a hotel terrace.

The food tour guides on this site will point you toward the broader street food scene if the pastizzi entry point has done its job.