Pasta & Co Ristorante

Pasta & Co sits on the Ta' Xbiex seafront at Msida, on the Marsamxett Harbour side of the island, opposite Valletta. It does one thing and keeps its attention there: fresh pasta, made by hand in the Italian way. The house motto is three words in Italian, genuinità, semplicità e amore, meaning genuineness, simplicity and love, and it sums up the cooking well. Our round-up of restaurants in Ta' Xbiex covers the rest of this stretch of waterfront.

A kitchen devoted to fresh pasta

The restaurant opened on 11 July 2017, and it was among the first places in Malta to build its whole offer around fresh artisan pasta rather than treating it as one course among many. Chef Salvo de Santeodoro shaped the kitchen from the start, setting a modest, traditional approach that follows the methods and recipes of Italian home cooking. Honest ingredients and straightforward plates remain the rule.

The photographs the restaurant chooses to show tell the same story: short twisted pasta in a bright green sauce topped with chopped nuts, ribbons of pasta carried out on a white plate, and nests of fine yellow strands waiting for the pot. If you enjoy comparing kitchens, our page on Italian restaurants in Malta lists many more, and Mamma Mia in Ta' Xbiex is a neighbour on the same seafront.

Takeaway and delivery

Since June 2019 the full kitchen has also been available to order online. Choose self pickup and your food is ready when you arrive, which cuts the wait, or choose delivery and eat at home. Both are handled through the ordering section of the restaurant's website, which suits anyone staying in a nearby apartment. Bookings and food orders each have their own page on the site, while a separate contact form is kept for general questions, comments and feedback, so it pays to use the right one if you want a quick reply.

Around Ta' Xbiex and Msida

Ta' Xbiex is a small headland pushing into Marsamxett Harbour between Msida and Gżira, and its name may come from the Maltese word for the rising sun or from xbiek, meaning fishing nets. Elegant seafront villas here now house many foreign embassies, and the water is crowded with boats: the Msida and Ta' Xbiex Yacht Marina has 720 berths, and the Royal Malta Yacht Club, host of the Rolex Middle Sea Race, has its clubhouse on the same shore.

British visitors with an interest in royal history may want to see Villa Guardamangia, about 600 metres away in Pietà, where Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, lived with Prince Philip between 1949 and 1951 while he served in Malta as a Royal Navy officer. Closer to the water, the Carmelite church of St John of the Cross became a parish in 1969 and holds a steel crucifix over four metres tall, based on a drawing by the saint.

Msida's Baroque parish church of St Joseph is about 100 metres away. Fawwara Gate, a late 18th-century archway raised by the Order of St John to mark a new road from Msida to Sliema, is about 500 metres away, and the Floriana Lines, the outer defences of Valletta begun in 1636 and on UNESCO's tentative list since 1998, are about 1.2 km away. Our Valletta guide picks up from there.

Hours and booking

Pasta & Co is open every day of the week from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm, so it works for an early lunch as well as dinner. Reservations go through the table booking section of the website. For somewhere to stay, our page on hotels in Sliema covers the neighbouring towns, and Ristorante La Vela in Pietà is another harbourside option close by. For a question, a group booking or anything else, use the VisitMalta.co.uk enquiry form on this page and we will pass your message to the restaurant.