Pasta in Malta
Finding authentic handmade pasta in Malta, no ferry required
Matto is an Italian restaurant on St George’s Bay in St Julian’s, Malta, where every pasta shape is made by hand from scratch, every day. The menu travels Italy by region: Roman carbonara with guanciale, slow-cooked Bolognese, lasagna with rosemary béchamel and coastal seafood pasta. Open daily 12:00 to 23:00.
Pasta at Matto
- Handmade pasta, made from scratch in our kitchen
- Rome: carbonara with guanciale, no cream
- Emilia-Romagna: slow-cooked Bolognese, proper lasagna
- The coast: squid ink spaghetti with clams, linguine with prawn bisque
- St George’s Bay, St Julian’s · Open daily 12:00 to 23:00
Malta has been eating Italian longer than most of Italy’s neighbours realise. The ferries, the families, the football, the food. Italian isn’t exotic here. It’s home cooking with a passport.
And that’s exactly why “good enough” pasta doesn’t survive on this island. Everyone in Malta has a benchmark: a nonna, a Rome trip, a favourite trattoria. If the ragù is rushed or there’s cream in the carbonara, people notice.
At Matto, pasta is handmade from scratch in our kitchen on St George’s Bay, St Julian’s. This is the guide to what’s on the plate. A little bit crazy, a lot Italian.
Italian Pasta in Malta
Malta runs on Italian food
Ask a Maltese table what they fancy for dinner and pasta will win the vote more often than not. It’s the default answer to “what are we eating”, from Sunday lunch to the midweek evening when nobody can be bothered to cook. Italian food didn’t arrive here as a trend. It’s always been part of how this island eats.
Which means a pasta restaurant in Malta doesn’t get graded on effort. It gets graded on memory. You’re not being compared to the place down the road. You’re being compared to someone’s nonna, someone’s summer in Sicily, someone’s favourite lunch in Rome.
So the real question is not where to find pasta in Malta. It’s where to find pasta made the way it’s supposed to be made. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to, and this menu is where we answer for it.
Handmade Pasta in Malta
Pasta made by hand from scratch, or it doesn’t leave the kitchen
Every pasta shape on our menu is made by hand, from scratch, in this kitchen, every day. That includes the rigatoni, the chitarra, the pappardelle and the filled tortelli. Not bought in, not made somewhere else. Flour, eggs, hands, here.
Here’s why it matters on the plate. Fresh pasta is softer and more porous than dried. It doesn’t wear the sauce, it drinks it. The ragù doesn’t sit on top of the pappardelle, it becomes part of it. And you can feel the difference with the fork and in your mouth. Fresh pasta has give. It bends before it breaks. Something that pasta lovers will taste from the first bite.
Rigatoni: wide and ridged, made to hold more sauce
We make our rigatoni slightly wider, with ridges down the sides, because carbonara is only as good as the pasta carrying it. The ridges give the sauce something to grip, the wide tube catches the guanciale. Nothing slides to the bottom of the bowl. That’s a decision dried pasta rarely makes for you, because factory shapes are built to survive a box. Ours are built for the sauce.
Chitarra: square edges that grip
Chitarra means guitar, and it’s named after the tool we cut it with: strands pressed through wire strings. That cutting is what gives the pasta its squared edges and slightly rough surface, which is exactly what pecorino and black pepper need to cling to. A smooth strand would let them slide off. Hand-cut chitarra won’t.
Pappardelle: ribbons wide enough for ragù
A slow-cooked ragù needs surface to land on, and thin strands would drown in it. So we roll our dough and cut the ribbons wide, by hand. Because they’re fresh and porous, the ragù doesn’t sit on top, it soaks in. Every ribbon comes out carrying sauce through it, not just on it.
Tortelli: filled, sealed and folded by hand
Tortelli can’t be rushed. Each one gets filled, sealed and folded by hand, which is why the filling stays generous and the edges hold their seal in the pan. A filled pasta lives or dies by its seal: get it wrong and the filling ends up in the water instead of on the plate.
Fresh pasta, authentic flavors, warm service. One of the best Italian restaurants in Malta.
Regional Italian Pasta Dishes in St Julian’s
Regional Italian food, plate by plate
Italian food isn’t one cuisine. It’s twenty regions that happen to share a border, each fiercely proud of what they do best. Carbonara belongs to Rome. Ragù belongs to Bologna. Clams belong to the coast. Take a dish out of its region and you get a cover version. Cook it the way its home cooks it, and you get the original.
That’s the intention behind Matto’s pasta menu. Instead of covering all of Italy with generic dishes, we chose the dishes each region is famous for, and we make them the way they’re supposed to be made. Handmade pasta, fresh ingredients, no shortcuts. It’s a short menu, but that’s deliberate. Every pasta dish on the menu is there to represent the best of that region:
Rigatoni Carbonara, the Roman test
We start with guanciale rendered slowly until it’s crisp, its fat staying in the pan. Then fresh rigatoni goes in with egg yolks, aged pecorino and a splash of starchy pasta water, tossed off the heat so the sauce turns silky instead of scrambling. No cream, because Rome never used it. That’s the whole recipe, and it’s enough.
Pappardelle Bolognese, the slow one
Our ragù simmers low for hours until the meat gives in and the sauce turns deep and rich. In Bologna it goes on ribbons, never spaghetti, so that’s what we serve it on: fresh pappardelle we roll and cut by hand, wide enough to carry the sauce and porous enough to soak it in. A ragù that took its time, on pasta that does it justice.
Lasagna, with rosemary in the béchamel
Fresh pasta sheets, layered with our slow-cooked Bolognese, parmesan and a béchamel we make with rosemary. Because the sheets are fresh, the layers settle into each other in the oven instead of staying separate, and we let it rest before serving so every square holds together. Everyone knows lasagna. Not everyone’s tasted rosemary running through the béchamel. It’s a small thing, until the first bite.
Spaghetti Nero Vongole, the coastal one
Fresh clams go into the pan with white wine and cherry tomato, and they cook just until they open, releasing their liquor. The squid ink spaghetti finishes cooking in that liquor, so the sea flavour runs through every strand instead of sitting on top. A short ingredient list means nowhere to hide, and the clams have to be fresh. Ours are.
Linguine al Gambero, built on the shells
Before anything touches the pasta, we cook the prawn shells down into a proper bisque. That’s where the depth comes from: the sauce tastes of prawns all the way through, not just where the prawns happen to be. Linguine, prawns, cherry tomato, zucchini and soft herbs finish it. Rich, with not a drop of cream.
Tortelli Ricotta e Spinaci, the filled one
Fresh ricotta and spinach, folded into pasta we roll by hand every day. On top, lemon sage butter and amaretti crumbs: a light sauce on purpose, because when the flavour is already inside the pasta, the sauce’s job is to stay out of the way.
Pasta fatta a mano, on the bay
Enjoy our handmade pasta, regional sauces, and a table on the best spot in St George’s Bay, St Julian’s, with your name on it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the pasta at Matto really handmade?
Yes, and we mean it literally. Our rigatoni, chitarra, pappardelle and tortelli are made by hand, from scratch, in our kitchen, every day. The pizza dough and desserts get the same treatment. If you want to test the claim, order any pasta and pay attention to the fork: fresh pasta bends before it breaks. You’ll taste the difference before we get the chance to explain it.
Which regional pasta dishes are on the menu at Matto?
Each dish is a region at its best. From Rome, we bring the classics done properly: Rigatoni Carbonara with guanciale and aged pecorino, no cream, and the Cacio e Pepe al Carrello, finished at the table. From Emilia-Romagna, the slow ones: Pappardelle Bolognese with a ragù simmered for hours, and our lasagna with rosemary running through the béchamel. From the coast, Spaghetti Nero Vongole with fresh clams, and Linguine al Gambero built on a proper prawn bisque. And for filled pasta, the Tortelli Ricotta e Spinaci, sealed and folded by hand, every day.
Do you have vegetarian pasta?
Yes. The Tortelli Ricotta e Spinaci is built around fresh ricotta and spinach, with lemon sage butter and amaretti crumbs, and the Cacio e Pepe al Carrello is vegetarian too. Because we make everything from scratch, the team knows exactly what goes into each dish, so tell them what you need and they’ll point you to the right plate.
Where exactly is Matto?
You’ll find us on St George’s Bay in St Julian’s, right on the waterfront, a short walk from Portomaso and the Paceville seafront. Close enough to the sea that the vongole makes sense.
Do I need to book?
Walk-ins are welcome, and lunch is usually easier to land. Evenings and weekends fill up quickly, so booking ahead is the smart move. You can reserve a table online whenever you’re ready.