When we were carrying out restoration works at our pied-a-terre, which today houses our independent apartment within the Birgu Blue portfolio, we did realise that the entrance hall must have hosted an animal of sorts, which would have been tied onto the wall, during the day or possibly at night to provide the animal with shelter. The elderly folk of Birgu also told us that the space had many uses in the past.
One room (which is now the bedroom) was indeed a boathouse, and housed a traditional ‘frejgatina’ of a local fisherman for many decades. It was also a workshop and a store for leather and shoes for a while and the amount of leather shoes we salvaged from the well (today the wine cellar), proves this.
But the place was mostly remembered by the locals as a grocery store of sorts, where a local farmer would bring his fresh vegetables and fruit from his fields just off the city walls and sell his fresh produce off the back of his mule!
This old photograph of the little donkey was taken some 65 years ago. The two young boys in the black and white photo are today adults, and they were kind enough to come over to our shop and let us have this original picture!
We can safely say that we have been doing Farm-to-Table for over 65 years! And we uphold this tradition by stocking a selection of organic jams and chutneys at our store, lovingly prepared by Maltese gastronome Andrea Critien of ‘With Love from Our Kitchen’.
Learn more about our concept store here.
