Word - Mimli

Meaning - “I can’t eat one more bite, I’m about to explode!”

Or in other words… “I’m full”.

Meals like bżar mimli (stuffed peppers) and qarabali mimli (stuffed marrows) were a staple of life, in fact it seemed that most of our favourite Maltese dishes involved a vegetable being stuffed or a slice of meat, or piece of pastry filled… figolli, bragioli, timpana, pastizzi, qassatat to name a few. So when it came time to settle on a name, Mimli seemed to be the word that best distilled the many years of love and laughter that we have spent around food as a family.

So many special and formative memories - the summers I’d spent learning to swim at Mellieħa Bay while eating my own weight in pastizzi tal-irkotta (or cheesecakes as I called them then). The nights we were allowed to stay up late, snacking on a huge bag of patatina classica while watching a sea of festa-fireworks light up the sky from our balcony, of course washing the whole experience down with a cold kinnie. The ferry ride to Gozo, looking up at a crowd of cousins, their huge gold hoops dangling down at me (it was the early 2000s), on our way to a glorious day at Ramla Bay, devouring hot slices of Gozitan ftira and chunks of juicy watermelon in between panicked dashes over hot sand, from the deck chairs to the sea and back again.

The idea to start Mimli was not a recent one - at the age of 8, I designed my own Maltese chain restaurant. Deciding the unique beauty of the Qassata would rival the sausage roll any day. The iconic shape of Qassatat reminded me of volcanos as a child, I planned out all the different flavours we would sell, convinced that as soon as the British public found out about Maltese food they would be as excited as I was, and make it a part of the culinary zeitgeist.

Years later, with a couple years of experience as a designer under my belt I decided to begin designing my dream Maltese food business, one unapologetically focused on Malta and it’s food, giving it the reverence it deserves.

It is my intention to grow the list of delicious treats we offer at Mimli, and continue to obsess over our food, what it’s given us and where it can reach in the future, but for now we hope you order from us and feel the love we have for Maltese food in every bite!

Daniel Abela - Owner & Baker