Margo's Mistra Bay — Restaurant in Mellieha

The inherent passion this place so explicitly displays shows through the description of each pizza…sorry, Pizza. This Italian culinary miracle is really taken to the extreme details – in each of the 40-ish words describing every item you get to feel the innate obsession of using only the bestest of the best. We have tasted pizza from all over the island, and our experience has been as follows: mostly just good, average. While on our Honeymoon cruise we had stopped at Civitavecchia for a pizza cooked ‘nel forno a legna’, and THAT was the best we had ever had. We had great expectations of this eating experience – especially since I had decided to relinquish my Atkins lifestyle to come here. We were absolutely, definitely, anti-Atkinsly not disappointed.

Most have highlighted that the place is expensive – and if you want to be shallow and compare just price you do make a good point. But when you factor in that all-important quality, things take kaleidoscopic vision. What do you want here? To spend as little as possible or to get value for money? I acknowledge that Margo’s is not for the budget-challenged to go every week. But hey, I suggest you eat out once a month instead of once a week and make it as special as possible. And that is exactly the whole point of this place. People do this all the time: we buy a tatty old car to run everyday errands and not worry unduly when we find a new dent on the bodywork, then get a spanking new pride and joy car to use only on weekends and let the garage enjoy it more than ourselves. We buy cheap clothes to go to work and branded ware ‘biex nohorgu’. Not to mention that we eat ‘ghagin kuljum’ and a ‘bicca laham’ for the weekend. The way I see it? Prices are a steal. You are not eating a vulgar concoction of ingredients whose provenance is known only to God – you are degusting a bloody work of art here.

But back to the evening. My wife settled for an Affumicata and I took the Calzone. The complementary appetizer was bread with olive oil, fennel seed and oregano. The bread itself was another example of that passion – even a three-year-old would know it’s made with beer. The texture was a perfectly struck balance between lightness and chewability, as was the balance between salt and sweet. The only pity was that there was simply too little of the other ingredients – especially the olive oil which lent a pungency well complemented by the sourness of the beer.

Then the Pizza came – and what a Pizza. My words are simply a waste here. You want to know what perfection is? Or what heaven tastes like? Or how an orgasm is translated to taste? The ‘mozzarella di bufala’ was just right, fatty with just enough substance but completely devoid of the bloating you experience in other places which use simply too much of what is nothing but processed milk by-products. My wife always complains about this (she is a great cheese-lover) but here she exclaimed all amazed that, for once, she was eating real, authentic cheese. I was amazed at each bite how the delicate pancetta blended with the said mozzarella and ‘ricotta di bufala’ which was silkier than silk. The cherry tomatoes and rucola were again perfect, alternating sweet with bitter and complementing the wine so well I felt compelled to close my eyes to listen to the angels playing their harps. And this judging the ingredients one by one. Try to imagine the whole thing washed down by the wine.

Man this guy...

On Margo’s website the owner wrote this bold statement: “We are good; we know it. Maybe even the best.” Perhaps the best of the worst? Our service was painfully slow and the food was average at best.

My family had booked a table at 1:30pm for lunch and after sitting we weren't served by anyone for the first 20 minutes. My pregnant sister in law was uncomfortable sitting in the sun so I asked the waitress to check if there was a spare umbrella on the premises but she didn't seem sure how to deal with it. After asking for a second time she came back informing us that the manager had no spare umbrellas. This was the first of several series of events that showed the stress that the staff were under.

Staff were not in a position to answer basic questions and hesitant to ask. In hindsight this reluctance probably stemmed from the fact that they were reluctant to hinder the already understaffed kitchen.

After ordering our food we noticed that it was taking very long to arrive. My sister in law queried about this to the waitress, moments later my father did the same and was promised some appetizers would be served straight away. These were never served. At 3pm I decided to take the initiative myself. At this point we had been seated for one and a half hours in the sun. I made it abundantly clear to the manager that we were considering to leave the premises as our pleas were being outright ignored and insisted on knowing exactly how many more minutes we had to wait to be served. Only after the manager spoke to the owner, who was the chef, I noticed the pizzas were being placed in the oven.

Minutes later the pizzas arrived and we all agreed that the quality of the food did not make up for the poor service we had experienced thus far.

It was very clear in the end that the restaurant was severely understaffed and while they did their very best we all wondered why such a poor management decision was made to accept so many bookings in the first place. Rest assured we are not interested in visiting Margo's in the near future. At the end of the day we were offered some drinks on the house but unfortunately this did not make up for the numerous...

Margo..sorry I mean Mar-slow more like!! How long does it take to cook a pizza? I will never know at this restaurant!! Lovely place to sit, beautiful location but we waited and waited and waited and waited!! 1 hour past and nothing, no food, no explanation from staff. No offer of bread to keep us going either. Buy an hour and a half we started to over hear comments from other customers..at least 3 other tables told us they had been waiting for over 2 hours!! We asked for bread and still nothing came. This was the point we walked out!! Inform customers how long they will have to wait when they order. Make a point of bringing bread, olives to table if wait times are long. Hire more staff especially in the kitchen. Such a shame as this place could be something very special. My advice is dont go unless you like waiting. And to add if you look at previous reviews you will notice the same criticism has been made at least 10 months previously to my review!!

BELOW IS MY REPLY AS UNFORTUNATELY ONCE THE RESTAURANT REPLIES YOU CANT REPLY UNLESS YOU EDIT ORIGINAL REVIEW.

To the owner. It seems you have us confused with another disgruntled customer. We actually ordered 1 pizza each. That equals 2 pizzas. Further more if this is your attitude to customer service and to the poor customer you reference in your reply then it is me who owes you an apology. I'm sorry we expected food to be served to us at your restaurant. Anyhow your reply will surely demonstrate to those considering your restaurant that you are in fact the reason for all its failings. Your brilliance as a chef maybe one thing but your attitude to justifiable criticism is ther very reason you get the same criticism 10 months prior to my review. I hope the very best for you because at the end of the day we are only criticising a restaurant not you...