A one man reinvention of Maltese cuisine with Yakof Debono 👨🍳
Living in Malta is a blessing for foodies - the licorice all-sorts of culture and character the island plays home to means we don’t often actually have to travel that far to take our taste buds on an adventure. 🗺️
But when it comes to local cuisine, Malta’s culinary history tends to take a backseat in favour of more prominent influences like Italian pizza and pasta or Turkish kebabs and pides. 🇮🇹🇹🇷
But, with COVID-19 impacting the archipelago in the last year, we were blessedly forced to turn back to a simpler approach on our eating habits. Sure, we got a surge of delivery options for on-demand food orders, but we also had to rely on the fruits (and veg) of our homeland. 💪🏻🇲🇹
One particular Maltese foodie took that mantra to the next level throughout 2020 and beyond… 👀
Yakof Debono is a self-taught home cook and he’s got one goal: to reinvent Maltese cuisine and highlight the golden oldie flavours and ingredients in a contemporary hue. 👏
We’ve had our eyes on Yakof’s feed for a long time now
And the dishes he’s been posting on his social media pages have been whetting our appetites for months. Just take a look at just some of the plates he’s gifted our inspiration with:
Like these glorious panettone french toasts with prickly pear jam, grilled apples and rosemary 🍯
Or this gorgeous plate of grilled octopus with a butterbean mash and coconut dukkah 🐙
Yakof has been hard at work doing the seemingly impossible, it seems. 👨💻
Like gbejniet nuggets - who would have ever imagined? 🤯
He’s even managed to make asparagus look like so much more than just mini versions of the plants that line the Coast Road. 🙊
As we mentioned before, Yakof is entirely self-taught when it comes to his culinary skills. If Gordon Ramsay had to put it in his own way, he’d say it’s entirely the opposite of a Kitchen Nightmare. 😶
Because anyone who can take something as simple as hummus and spin it into every iteration possibly comprehensible should be the one to stump Ramsay on his one-liners. 😏
And if it’s not a savoury plate of satisfaction Yakof is serving up, it’s an equally impossibly-possible sweet treat he’ll have in store. 🤤
How about a serving of his genius imqaret and tahini trifle - featuring everyone’s favourite local soft drink, Kinnie. 🍊
Yes, Yakof’s level of creativity in the way he spins a few simple ingredients into something sure enough to pull focus on a restaurant menu really has no limits. 📈
Why has no one ever thought of making Maltese sushi before? 🤭
That bad-boy boasts a host of bigilla, octopus and rabbit rolls - still keeping in line with the true intention of sushi; that being to preserve and extend local Japanese ingredients. But in Yakof’s case, he’s taking it even further and pushing for preservation of local ingredients as a whole. ♻️
Yakof’s passion for cooking stretches far beyond just the stunning photos of each dish he uploads. He values the importance of food as both a source of pleasure and comfort - he knows it all too well himself by the looks of things. 😌
With an aim to educate anyone who happens upon his work, Yakof wants to ensure that Maltese cuisine as a whole - right down to the ingredients that enjoy the category - is kept fresh in our minds for good. 👨🏫
To kickstart 2021, Yakof launched his own website to keep all of his recipes in one easy-to-find catalogue. 🔗
Because when you’re crafting the equivalent of alchemical gold from seemingly nothing (in this case, nothing being many ingredients we take for granted), you’re gonna wanna write that stuff down and we’re gonna wanna try it out for ourselves. 🙌
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