Browns Kitchen

Browns Kitchen occupies Vault 4 on the Valletta Waterfront, the baroque quay in Floriana also called Pinto Wharf, whose 18th century stores and warehouses now hold a row of restaurants beside the cruise liner terminal. It is a family business, run by husband and wife Sandro and Diane with their staff, and it opens all day, every day. The kitchen's strengths are fresh fish and good beef, but the menu spreads wide enough to cover pasta, pizza, salads and a handful of Maltese classics. Our page on restaurants in Floriana lists the other tables along the quay.

A family restaurant on Pinto Wharf

The welcome borrows a line from Luciano Pavarotti, about the pleasure of stopping whatever you are doing to give your full attention to eating, and the promise that follows is plain: original, well-made food on every visit. The team picks its ingredients from Malta and abroad, and the dining is split between the vault itself and tables outside, with the Grand Harbour in view whatever the season.

The restaurant's photographs show a long room of honey-coloured stone with a blue and white chequered floor, a green-framed doorway marked with the vault number, and a covered terrace running along the front of the old stores. It works as well for a quick lunch off a cruise ship as for a long evening meal.

Starters, platters and salads

Starters cost €9.90 to €14.90. Aljotta, the traditional Maltese fish soup, is €12.90, and other local touches include neonati fish cakes with tartare sauce at €13.90 and rabbit liver on a brioche toast with port jus and plum chutney at €13.90. Sautéed mussels with white wine and basil cost €12.90, fried calamari and octopus in white wine €14.90 each, and pork cheeks slow cooked in calvados with a touch of dark chocolate €14.90. Vegetarians can start with fried local goat's cheese with apple chutney or aubergine parmigiana, both €11.90.

For sharing, a Maltese platter of bigilla bean dip, goat's cheese, stuffed olives, Maltese sausage and galletti biscuits costs €23.90, the house platter of international cheeses and cured meats €24.90, and a trio of sausages with truffle mayonnaise €14.90. Salads cost €12.90 to €17.90, from a caprese with buffalo mozzarella to a salmon and prawn salad, a quinoa bowl with feta and pistachio, and a Caesar with chicken and bacon.

Pasta, risotto and pizza

Every pasta dish is a main course priced from €16.90 to €18.90, and a starter portion can be had for €1.50 less. Seafood leads the list: calamarata with calamari and prawn bisque and spaghetti with octopus at €17.90, and spaghetti frutti di mare in bianco, lobster and shellfish tortelli, and sea bass and pistachio ravioli at €18.90. Meat eaters can choose spaghetti with a beef fillet ragù cooked for eight hours, oriental beef tagliatelle or mezze maniche with guanciale and pistachio cream, all €18.90, and vegetarian plates include goat's cheese ravioli and porcini ravioli at €16.90 and a wild mushroom risotto at €17.90.

Pizzas run from €9.90 for a margherita to €16.90. The Maltese pizza with local sausage, stuffed olives and peppered goat's cheese costs €14.90, a quattro formaggi €15.90, and the Fire and Honey with spicy salami, buffalo mozzarella and hot honey €16.90. Two focaccias, one with smoked salmon at €16.90 and an Emilia Romagna with pistachio pesto and mortadella at €17.90, complete the oven section.

Fresh fish and the grill

Fish is a speciality. The fresh fish of the day and local king prawns, served on a prawn bisque risotto, are both priced at market rate. Beer-battered fish and chips made with Nile perch cost €18.90, a swordfish steak with olives and white wine €23.90, a pan-roasted salmon fillet in lemon butter and sautéed fresh calamari €24.90 each, and octopus in garlic €25.90. The antipasto of fish, a single portion with mussels and clams, octopus, fried calamari, neonati fritters, a local prawn and a fillet of fish, costs €37.90.

Premium beef is the other pillar. A 350g ribeye or 350g fillet costs €30.90, a fillet stuffed with spinach, mushroom and mozzarella €32.90, a fillet with truffle sauce €33.90, and a USDA tagliata for two €75.00. Poultry and game include Maltese rabbit fried in garlic and braised in wine at €22.90, chicken Diane at €21.90 and Barbary duck breast with wild berry compote at €24.90, while lamb shank with Moroccan spices and honey-glazed pork ribs cost €23.90 and veal ossobuco €26.90. Mains come with fries or roast potatoes and seasonal vegetables, and sauces cost €2.50 extra.

Vegan, gluten-free and children's choices

A separate vegan section offers tofu bites at €9.90, a plant-based burger at €16.90, spaghetti with lentil ragù at €15.90, chickpea fettuccine with red pesto at €17.90 and a sweet potato and chickpea curry with basmati rice at €20.90. The chickpea burger, at €15.90, is vegan too. Gluten-free bread and gluten-free pasta are available for €1.50 extra, and every dish carries allergen codes.

Children up to the age of 12 have their own corner of the menu, priced from €6.90 for penne with tomato sauce to €11.90 for salmon fish cakes with fries, with pizza margherita, chicken nuggets and sausages with fries each at €7.90. Burgers for adults cost €15.90 to €18.90, from chicken to a Black Angus burger with egg and bacon.

Parties, groups and set menus

Browns caters for celebrations of every kind: office parties, birthdays, stag and hen nights, big groups and other functions. For these, the team puts together a set menu shaped around the budget and requirements of the party, so it is worth getting in touch early with numbers and dates. If the celebration is part of a longer stay, our Valletta guide covers the capital above the wharf and our Three Cities guide the towns across the harbour.

A short walk into Floriana

Floriana, the fortified town between the waterfront and the gates of Valletta, takes its name from the Italian engineer Pietro Paolo Floriani, and it was laid out from 1724 under Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena. Its central square holds the Lion Fountain, about 300 metres from the restaurant, a baroque fountain the same Grand Master installed in 1728 and moved a few metres in the 1950s. St Publius Parish Church, about 400 metres away, was built in several stages between the 18th and 20th centuries, and the War Memorial, about 450 metres away, is a tall limestone obelisk in the shape of a Latin cross, unveiled in 1938 and rededicated in 1949 to the dead of both world wars.

Back towards the water, the Grand Harbour lies about 600 metres away, a natural harbour lined over the centuries with docks, wharves and forts. Beneath the capital, about 650 metres away, the Lascaris War Rooms are the tunnels from which Malta's defence was directed in the Second World War, later used by NATO and now open as a museum.

Hours, booking and neighbours

Browns Kitchen is open every day from 10:00 am to 11:00 pm. Tables can be requested through the reservation form on the restaurant's website, where you can choose inside or outside, or booked with instant confirmation through TheFork; same-day requests through the form are only accepted before 4:00 pm. Neighbours on the waterfront include Bistro 516, Hi Sushi, Ta' Detta and the Hard Rock Cafe, and our guide to hotels in Valletta covers places to stay up the hill. To ask about a table, a party or a set menu, use the VisitMalta.co.uk enquiry form on this page and we will pass your message to the restaurant.