Etienne’s, Attard

Quite by chance I and my superior other found ourselves in Attard last weekend with some time to kill.

I've been reading about a restaurant and wine bar called Etienne's for some time since I moved to Malta. The proprietor writes a piece in the monthly Air Malta magazine and as I do a fair bit of short-haul travel in Europe in my role as a corporate whipping boy I've read a few of his articles.

So why not try it out eh? Well that's just what we thought at the time. We found the place, a small charming little establishment with a wine bar on the bottom floor that might seat twenty people at a push and an equally small but charming restaurant on the first floor, by randomly driving around Attard before I remembered that my blackberry has a GPS system and hey presto there we were.

It was a Friday evening in May but we were able to get a table without a reservation which was a bonus. We sat downstairs and waited to be served a drink whilst the owner prepared to come and 'Explain' the menu to us (his words not mine). We ended up having to ask for our drinks order to be taken and perversely as we were sipping our drinks a table that had been present and seated when we walked in the door were just getting their drinks order brought to them as we started on ours. So the drinks service, whilst superbly polite and friendly wasn't particularly efficient.

In due course we had the menu read to us, which is something I can't say I enjoy as its more of a test of your short term memory than a chance to peruse the dishes and arrive at a considered decision. Anyway there was no fish available that day (the purveyors had not delivered) but there was a decent choice of starters and a few main courses comprised entirely of steak/beef dishes with a prawn dish or other. I opted for a rib eye and to start a Porchini mushroom risotto. My other half ended up with a pasta dish as a main course and sorry but I can't remember her choice of starter.

My risotto when it arrived was rich and delicious but the mushrooms were dried and soaked and hadn't been sautéed well (if at all) and as such were very stringy and unpleasant. However my other half, who has a unique palate at times, thought they were delicious and graciously ate them for me.

When the mains arrived (a good forty minutes after the starters were cleared) I was greeted by a large rib eye which was unusually thin and lean. It was cooked beautifully pink, slightly over the medium I had asked for but it was overly dry for my liking and I ended up leaving a fair portion of it. My other half had chosen one of the appetisers (a shrimp pasta) as a main course and stopped a waitress/chef and asked for some parmesan to adorn the dish. Now I'm sure you're aware of the cheese/no-cheese rule for non-fish and fish based pastas. Well, as it happens so was the waitress.

Now in all fairness to the light of my life, she is a pescitarian and a smoker and has what can only be described as a deep longing for good parmesan so her palate isn't conventional to say the least. So when the waitress not only questioned the request but then, get this...., point blank refused to bring any cheese at all, you can imagine my surprise. The attitude she displayed was of incredulous shock, as if we had offended her culinary ethics in a deep and unforgiveable way. It wasn't the refusal to bring the cheese that incensed me it was the attitude displayed towards, not only a paying customer, but a paying customer that I happen to be quite fond of, that really pissed me off.

I won't bore you with the details of earlier that day but we'd had a bit of an emotionally draining day and the last thing my other half wanted was me starting a scene so she very graciously acquiesced to the Cheese Nazi and shot me a look to warn me to do the same.

So in true British style I sat there and fumed at the audacity of the hired help but very wisely kept my feelings to myself. We declined desert and coffee and I couldn't pay the bill quick enough to get out of there and vent.

So there in a nutshell is my Etienne's experience. It really is a beautiful restaurant in a beautiful part of Attard. If you can visit on a day when they may have some fish and if you can ensure you don't offend the hired helps sense of culinary ethical behaviour then you should have a decent experience. It probably will take you a while to eat three courses so make sure you have the time to kill. The wine list is very good, one of the better ones I've seen, but as my first choice wasn't available I wonder how much of the list is actually in stock at any one time.

As for me and the woman with "that" palate.... well we won't be returning any time soon, if at all.