OyOy Restaurant — Restaurant in Saint Julian's

Review: 0/5 — An Odyssey of Mediterranean Disaster (in Malta)

If you’re looking for a dining experience that defies logic and turns the concept of “dinner” into a Herculean task, this is the place for you… provided your goal is to write a survival guide for the emotionally wounded.

The starter: it seemed prepared by someone who mistook olive oil for engine grease and decided olives deserved anonymity. The bread on the table had the texture of empty compliments: dry, stretched thin, and completely pointless. The appetizer was as generous as a half-hearted apology.

The main course tried — with comedic bravery — to replicate the Mediterranean coast, but the result was a bad translation of a dream: fish as dry as yesterday’s news, vegetables boiled until they lost all identity, and a sauce that managed the impressive feat of being both bland and unbearably salty at the same time. The moussaka looked like it had been through arbitrary renovations: confused layers, seasoning gone missing, and a strong hint of “I’ve seen this before, and I didn’t like it then either.”

Service? Imagine that one movie character forced to work at the end of the world. The waitress had the warmth of a broken compass and the speed of a turtle on strike. Orders arrived with the reliability of campaign promises — late, wrong, and with no follow-up. A water refill? Mission impossible.

Atmosphere: the décor tried to be rustic and ended up looking abandoned. Music loud enough to kill any intelligent conversation, and lighting that made every dish look suspicious. The bathroom? A poem about neglect — short, bare, and smelling of bad decisions.

Price: charged as if dinner came with a private view of the Mediterranean; in reality, the most valuable view was of my common sense begging me to stand up and leave.

In short: this restaurant is the kind of place that turns a meal into memories you only share to warn friends to avoid the same fate. If you want Mediterranean authenticity, go elsewhere. If you want material for a biting, humorous chronicle, bring a notebook.

Final rating: 0/5 — recommended only if...

Unbelievable service and treatment. We sat there, they brought the food menus 20 minutes later. They asked us 3 times what water we want before they brought it to us. I kindly asked that I want them to serve each plate when it is ready, or all together, and the waiter refused because they cannot (?) do it, so she forced me to choose appetisers and main courses. I asked for spaghetti with tomato sauce for the kids and she brought me rigatoni without asking. They brought the appetisers with less forks and no plates to serve, and then after 1 hour and 45 minutes that we waited to eat and asked for the check to leave, they told us that the main dishes were ready and asked us if we want them.Then, after 10 minutes that they brought everything, not of course all together but separately each plate ,when it was ready (even though they told us at the beginning that they cannot do this), they served red, not well cooked chicken(I do not care how you prepare it,I know what sous vide means, and I do not work in fast food as your waiter told me with plenty irony, I won’t eat red chicken-after all, the fact that you use sous vide makes it even weirder why you were so late). I won’t even try to review the food, because after all these I had lost my appetite, although i have to say that it was the tasteless beef tartare I have ever tried.Unbelievable, terrible, I am speechless, and after all these they had the nerve to bring the check casually and laughing, like nothing happened. Maybe we didn’t seem like their usual customers and they didn’t care at all. Congratulations, first time in my life I am leaving...

I had a very disappointing experience at Oy Oy Restaurant, and I strongly recommend avoiding this place. The entrance was immediately off-putting due to a strong smell of sewage, which set a terrible tone right from the start.

Upon being seated, we had to ask for cutlery — it was not provided proactively, which is unacceptable. The starter was bland and lacked any real taste, and to make matters worse, one of the chairs broke in the middle of our meal. The rabbit we ordered was undercooked, which was quite alarming and unacceptable for a restaurant of this supposed quality.

Throughout our visit, we also noticed a man doing laundry on a balcony nearby, which was unprofessional and made the environment feel very unkempt. When our main courses arrived, the lobster was clearly frozen and overpriced at 48 euros, and the quality of the food was far from fresh.

Additionally, the food was served at different times instead of all at once; some of us received our mains while others waited an additional 20 minutes. The service was terrible overall — slow, inattentive, and lacking any sense of professionalism. It felt like they were more focused on aesthetics and appearances rather than actual food quality and customer care.

To top it all off, the bill came to 410 euros for five people and a baby, which is exorbitant given the poor quality and service.

Apart from the view and atmosphere, this place would easily be a one-star experience. I strongly advise against visiting Oy Oy Restaurant — there are many better options in Malta for quality food and...