Commando

Skin upwards at the pass

The sea bass goes to the heat skin upwards at Commando in Mellieħa, inside a stone building with 300 years in its walls. The restaurant works in the restored former workplace of the owners' forefathers, who used it for over 80 years, and the name comes from service of another kind: the family provided support for the Royal Marines in the 1930s. The dining room now carries a Mediterranean kitchen rather than that earlier trade, but the sense of use remains. Chef Damian Ciappara and his wife own and run the house, and the direction he set is the one the kitchen still follows: simple, elegant dishes drawn from Mellieħa's surroundings, seasonally influenced, worked out with local producers rather than around them. Sea bass sits naturally beside lamb rump, pappardelle with duck ragù, wild mushroom tagliatelle, polenta fries, vegan mushroom risotto, breaded vegan mozzarella and tomahawk steak. The line is seasonal, local where the kitchen can keep it so, and close to the village around it.

A seasonal menu in an old stone house

The program at Commando is built for choice rather than ceremony: à la carte, set menu, daily specials, wine and cocktails moving around fresh fish, seafood, meat, vegetables, pasta and homemade desserts. Michelin has pointed to pappardelle with duck ragù and chopped hazelnuts, a dish that shows the kitchen's preferred register, depth from the ragù, lift from the nut, no need to make the plate taller than the appetite. The restaurant holds Bib Gourmand recognition and, as of 2026, was in its seventh year of that recognition, one of five such venues in the Maltese Islands. Awards belong to the house, not to a single pair of hands, and here they read best through the discipline of the plate. The building's age matters because the food is not trying to erase it. Rustic pasta, sea bass, lamb rump and mushroom risotto sit in the same rhythm as exposed stone: familiar materials, handled with a fine-dining eye and an upscale casual pace.

The room between village and bay

The room is intimate, with exposed brickwork, contemporary furnishings and the kind of conversational noise that lets the pass keep its own tempo. Commando sits on the winding road from Mellieħa village toward Ghadira Bay, and the outdoor patio catches the breeze when summer heat gathers against the stone. Inside, the service is warm without turning the meal into theatre. Plates cross a small room; wine comes as part of the meal rather than as a separate performance. The cellar is described through selection rather than scale, with a curated wine program and cocktails held close to the food. That matters in a restaurant of this size. Too much display would crowd the bench.

The hand held in the instruction

Commando has held that line since around 2014, through several changes of hand in the kitchen and through the pandemic, with Ciappara and his wife keeping the standard from ownership rather than from the stove. That continuity is what the Bib Gourmand measures here. Not a single signature, but a small team working like a finely crafted timepiece on a busy night, and a card that keeps returning to fresh fish, tender meat, sun-ripened vegetables, rustic pasta and homemade desserts. The Ciappara family has been present since 1930, and the charm the room carries is inherited from the building rather than applied to it. The plate the guide singled out says it plainly, pappardelle with duck ragù and chopped hazelnuts at Commando.