Lore & Fitch — Restaurant in Saint Julian's

We booked a dinner with my wife, celebrating a birthday. We were here before, and had confidence in the place. This disappeared for ever! We wanted to eat 2 nice steaks and a bottle of wine. First problem was the wine. They have a great selection, but when I ordered a Caravaggio bottle of Shiraz, to have some local taste, the waiter brought and opened another wine, and said his colleague believes it will be the same good for us. NOT at ALL! His substitution was a cheapo cuvee containing our choice of grape as well, a three euro wine, sold at nineteen eur, and half the value of our choice as per maltese retail prices. It is OK to have a missing wine on the list, but please, tell it before opening, to be able to choose another. Then the steaks: Instead of the 250 g Australian Fillet, we received something 1 cm thin folded in 2 (!) on the plate, to look bigger, and not a fillet at all. It probably was a sirloin at best. But comes more: Instead of the signature 400g USDA rib eye, I received something average, thin and fatty, probably again a sirloin steak of some kind, maybe even under 300g. It seems they thought we would never find out that they are not "the real thing". As it was a celebration and my wife persuaded me not to ruin the evening with complaints, we kept on going. I really believed they misunderstood our orders. She felt sick of the meat after the dinner, so we wanted to have some digestivo, an Avemar and Fernet Branca. Next shock, the waiter brought a white cocktail and told us, this is Fernet Branca! Now we sent it back, and demanded the Fernet. They finally opened a new bottle and brought it to us.

The last shock was the invoice. They sold us, of course the thin sirloin cuts as the original orders, paying premium cut prices for these average meats! My wife quietly mentioned them, that it was not how we remembered this place and the meat before, of course there was no reception, their answer was that the chef is still the same. For the same meat and food, half the price would have been too much in Malta. I am not sure if it was a rip-off by the staff not detected by the management.

Our suggestions, if you dare to go there: It is not a meat boutique: be prepared to be a butcher or else, you will not get the premium and expensive cut, what you paid for. Be prepared to control each item you order, as the staff can cheat you with a cheap substitution. We can just hope that my wife's sickness was from the fat on the meat and not from the freshness of the meat. Do not show that you are tourist, and easy target for the restaurant "tricks". This is unusual to Malta.

What a disappointment, as this restaurant is at a top location, with a top view, premium prices, that puts responsibility to the staff and the owners!

Disappointment...

This is a beautiful restaurant, well decorated, and the service is nice, not pushy, efficient. However, the grill is disappointing. Given how much the restaurant focuses on their meat, with the meat on display at the entrance, the menu having lots of meat images and a big explanation of the different cooking temperatures (from well done to blue), you would expect the grilled meat to be top class.

Unfortunately, it is disappointing.

The grill temperature is clearly too low and therefore the surface of the meat is not crisp. The fat on the rib eye was not well cooked and was still fatty, not melted enough, not crispy on the outside. A missed opportunity for a good rib eye.

The strip loin was meh. Same, not enough temperature. Boring and a missed opportunity. Both were ordered medium rare but funnily enough the two meats were grilled differently and one was definitely rare, the other perhaps medium rare at a stretch. Quite bad inconsistency for a place who should know better and markets the meat grill grades so detailed.

The side salad looks out of place for an expensive restaurant. It looks like the cheap salad you get at cantine, lettuce and shredded carrots and some sweetcorn. No dressing, not much green in it, probably the most disappointing of all. Should be a green salad, well dressed. Sweetcorn has nothing to do in a fancy restaurant salad. Or shredded carrot.

Overall, very disappointing as a grill place. Perhaps the pasta is better.

I didn't tell the service staff these things since they were super nice, so hopefully this can inform the restaurant to do better, because to survive as a high end grill restaurant, this grilling is just not...

What a cold shower... Our first impression when arriving was great: welcoming staff, offering of a 4 places table (even though the next one was better situated with view outside but already booked for 5 apparently), gorgeous interior and deco. We loved it. Looking at the menu, we enjoyed it even more: it looked so yummy. Same for the wine list which is amazing (up to 8'000 euros bottle by the way!). We ordered first an aperitif followed by the food and wine. Once our aperitif was done, wine was served. We then waited more than 1 hour to be served for the food... And we had to ask for it. It was then served within 15 minutes, 1 hour and a half after our arrival. We saw many tables coming in, eating and leaving.... While tasting the food, potential was there but it was clear it was prepared in a rush. Ribs were the worst I ever had, barely cooked. Beef filet was rare while my son asked for medium. So disappointing. Our experience didn't seem to be unique: a nice couple next table experienced the same thing... I gently made my point while asking for the bill (more than 150 euros) and I got surprised there was not even a gesture from the manager (for instance aperitif which was no more than 15 euros). While paying and again making my point very politely, they finally offered a digestive on the house which we declined since already at the cashier close to the exit, it was too late for making it up. I believe this is a wonderful place but it turned out an outrageously expensive terrible experience. Sad to say but we will not go back. I hope our experience will remain an exception....