1 · POSITION
de Mondion occupies the upper floor of The Xara Palace within Mdina’s fortifications. Its principal architectural advantage is immediate: a small restaurant looks outward from the walls of Malta’s former capital towards the eastern island and coast. The setting gives a contemporary Mediterranean kitchen a place within an older geography of enclosure, height and surveillance.[1, 2]
2 · A ROOM ABOVE THE WALLS
The restaurant’s indoor room and outdoor terrace offer different relationships with that setting. Michelin describes a carpeted, intimate interior and a terrace with an expansive view. The hotel advertises space for up to thirty-five diners for restaurant events. Neither arrangement requires a vast dining hall: the surrounding landscape supplies the scale that the room itself deliberately lacks.[1, 2]
3 · A WORKING MALTESE KITCHEN
Executive chef Clint Grech works with head chef Gabriel Caruana. The restaurant connects its seasonal menus to the Xara Gardens, while its cooking combines Mediterranean ingredients with French influences. Michelin’s examples include sea bass with pomelo, mushrooms and a concentrated jus, and a tarte tropézienne accompanied by zabaglione. These are examples from an inspection, not a promise of permanent signature dishes.[1–3]
4 · HOSPITALITY BEYOND THE PLATE
The wine programme supports the kitchen with more than five hundred references, according to the restaurant. In 2026, sommelier Miljan Radonjic received Michelin’s Malta Sommelier Award. The same year, de Mondion retained the star it first received in the inaugural Malta selection of 2020. These distinctions recognise different parts of a meal: the cooking and the professional guidance surrounding it.[1, 3]
5 · ⚑ CANDOUR
⚑ Sources differ over the palace’s century of origin; this entry avoids resolving that architectural dating by assertion. The restaurant is contemporary, however old its setting. Its use of gardens also does not establish that every ingredient is estate-grown. The strongest account joins a specific fortified location to documented kitchen and dining-room work.[1–3]
Sources & Further Reading
Sources checked 24 September 2026.