Many people know of the 1.5 metre kitchen which Victor Borg used to miraculously create beautiful food out of at Mange Tout. Most restaurant kitchens on the island are slightly larger than that, but still cramped. Few, very very few, kitchens are anywhere as beautiful, spacious, well planned and a joy to work out of than the kitchen at Ta’ Soldi restaurant in Mgarr.

Ta’ Soldi is known for its pile-em-high plates of food which let’s face it, the readers of this website sometimes love but find it hard to admit to partaking of. With the regular students at the Mona’s Meals Food Workshops though, Ta’ Soldi is one hell of an impressive place to spend several hours joyfully preparing and cooking food. Impressive because of its space yes, but even more astounding due to its very high levels of cleanliness. Lorraine and David, both Ta' Soldi staff, joined us. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for some exciting developments coming up at this restaurant.

As soon as we started streaming in, we could not praise whichever fairies had prepared the gleaming stainless steel surfaces for us enough and only stopped because we were all too busy scoffing espressos and cappuccinos as Marvin, Sciacca’s Chef Patron revved up his spiel. Marvin did what few other chefs have the generosity to do: he shared one of his best-selling recipes with us: that for the Lamb Ravioli.

Ah, what a simple couple of words. As I had never tried them at Sciacca, I wondered what people were making all that fuss about. All of it turned out to be merited. It’s a complicated recipe, and one that justified the hour that we spent on it (not to mention another hour assembling the pockets) but the beautiful tones of Martini, lamb shoulder, excellent pasta and the fresh herbs, most of which came directly from David Micallef (the Manager at Ta’ Soldi)’s private greenhouse, sent all of us into paroxisms of delight. In fact, the students couldn’t wait and ended up scoffing them like piggies, standing at the passe and around the kitchen, demolishing each and every one.

David Micallef will one day be credited with revolutionising quality food on this island and you read it here first. For more than a year now David has been experimenting with raising naturally-fed chickens, which produce such amazing eggs and tender meat (yes, from the same chicken). He is raising chickens of various breeds, pheasant and a host of little animals, some of them on my behalf. I call him the ‘father of my chickens’. Unlike a host of other breeders who cannot stomach the fact that this will not make them rich overnight, David pursues his dream. It’s a hobby, but it is also the future of local, small-scale agriculture.

In a home, the beautiful Scottish leg of lamb which we got from Zammeats (at Arkadia in St. Julians or the new shop in Swatar) would take more than two hours to cook, but using one of Ta’ Soldi’s fabulous ovens (Christmas note to The Writer: I really, really want one of those for our kitchen), it was done in an hour and a half. The recipe for it is here.

Our generosity knows no bounds. As soon as I noticed that Zammeats also had those wonderfully ready-prepared racks of lamb from Millers of Speyside available, I swooped. So we cooked them in the French traditional method, crusting them in herbs, parmesan, breadcrumbs and mustard.

As we sat around the tables, this time our hunger sated slightly from the ravioli, attacking the melt-in-the-mouth lamb and the roast potatoes we all agreed that the rack of lamb was so soft it was our favourite part of the animal. And to think some people thought the idea of a lamb workshop would be boring…

Forthcoming workshops:

16^th October 2010: Lampuki (the pie, fried, roasted)

30^th October 2010: Modern Indian with Allen Diwan (fabulously contemporary takes on Indian cuisine including fish curry, vegetarian dishes and dessert)

13^th November 2010: Classical Indian with Sunil from Garam Masalaa (our favourites from our favourite ‘Indian’)

Thursday 25^th to Sunday 28^th November: A Cook’s Tour of Rome – all the best eateries, the abbachio, the ice-cream, the pizza.

18^th December – Christmas and festive cooking