Malét is Bugibba’s newest addition and a venue where good company and exceptional food can be enjoyed in an elegant, yet unpretentious, atmosphere. What’s particular about this new restaurant is that it hosts an exclusive ‘private room’ lavishly furnished and completely secluded for those occasions which require a certain level of intimacy. The private room comes complete with a DVD player, internet and a stereo.

The food, Mediterranean-based with a slant towards Asian and Arabic cuisine, is extensive and exciting and includes favourites like the orange glazed duck breast wrapped in Parma ham, and the highly applauded Surf-n-Turf. The chef’s method of combining the essence of various cuisines, together with his use of fresh local produce transforms what he creates into a gastronomical delight and makes the whole experience of dining at Malét one which won’t go forgotten.

Opening times
Monday to Sunday
Dinner: 5.30pm till 3.00am

Sunday
Lunch: 11.30am till 2.30pm

Story:
Neolithic men were the first traceable inhabitants to dwell in Malta. They lived, built and died in Malta. They left remarkable structures like the Skorba Temples, Ggantija and the Tarxien temples. These were constructed between 5000-4000 B.C. and remain amongst the oldest freestanding structures in the world. Neolithic man also left unexplainable phenomena like the Cart-Ruts. On what was one day to become known as the Maltese Islands.
Neolithic man either left these island or perished on them. After a thousand year during which Malta was nothing but a desolate and deserted island, came the race of man who are the direct descendants of the Maltese people today – The Phoenicians.
The Phoenicians were Semites and their cradle was Lebanon. From this tiny base of power, they swiftly made themselves supreme ship builders, navigators and merchants. Their reputation as the world greatest and bravest sailors was never questioned. From their thriving seaports of Tyre and Sidon in modern day Lebanon, they set out in search of trade and discovery. They were an inquisitive, intelligent and courageous people. Their ships carved from the fable cedars of Lebanon, had a high stem with a horse head emblem. That is the emblem of the Phoenician. Their boats are the original design from which our ‘luzzu’, the colourful Maltese and gozitan boat, are fashioned.
They did not only sail in search of adventure. Sometimes when they stepped ashore, they stayed ashore. These most famous forefathers first came to the un-named and unknown islands as traders, merchants and sailors some fifteen hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. They came and they called these islands – Malét, meaning shelter. It was the same shelter Ulysses had found when he wrecked in Gozo, and spent seven years in seclusion with the nymph calypso. The same shelter to be found later by St. Paul, to be conquered by the Romans in 218B.C. and the Arabs in A.D.670. Malét was the name of these islands before the Byzantine Empire before the Knights of St. John, before the unsuccessful siege by the Ottoman Empire, before the French and the English rulers. Now some 4000 years later Malét has become a shelter to a great many people, a friendly port and a hospitable people, with a history unrivalled the world over.