Name more iconic Maltese food than pastizzi. You literally can’t. The traditional diamond-shaped pastry is the island’s favourite snack, and has held that coveted position for generations. But when something so small and seemingly insignificant manages to permeate through all levels of society, what does it really mean for the people who make it their entire lifeline?

Lovin Malta’s latest documentary sees Johnathan Cilia meeting the family behind Sphinx, one of the biggest names in pastizzerias in the country

Brothers Aaron and Elvin Muscat take viewers through how they followed in their father’s footsteps, quickly developing the same passion that had been passed onto them.

From the painstaking process of making pastizzi by hand to the daily grind of delivering to 40 shops by 1pm, the Muscat brothers were very literally “raised with flour”, and the savoury pastry is their life

Beyond the culinary magic, pastizzi have also inspired some of the island’s artists

Inspired by the humble pastizz, Maltese artist Kane Cali took the shape of the traditional food icon to a whole new level by turning it into coloured wax, concrete and glass sculptures that have decorated houses all over the island.

“I’m planning to make them into soap and probably candles as well,” Cali smiles, clearly intent on pushing his fascination of the super snack to the next level.

What persisted, however, is that the beloved pastizz is part of a dying art

While we can all agree that pastizzi are amazing, it’s sadly not something that can effortlessly survive without a great deal of input from the people who brought them to life in the first place.

“The biggest problem regarding pastizzi is the pastizzara,” Aaron perfectly puts it. “It’s an old craft, and there aren’t enough pastizzara because it’s done by hand. There is no machinery.”

But if new generations continue to take on this dying trade with the same passion of the Muscat brothers, Malta should move on with no shortage of the tasty pastizzi.

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).