We have all watched on in horror as they hit: soulless, zombie restaurants.

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With their identical menus and cocktail lists, even their names, brands, and interiors all exhibit little by way of variation.

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These sad hell holes aren’t interested in food.

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Instead, they want to be ‘Instagramable’.

But when food becomes subject to the whims of fashion, some basic part of what we love about eating dies.

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You might think that nothing interesting could be happening at a Maltese burger joint.

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But something IS happening at Bulubeef – the new burger bar being headlined by Chef Nicholas Diacono.

The NYB Story

This is not Diacono’s first try at flipping burgers and dunking things into fryers.

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I’d be amiss in not pointing out that Nick was the creative culinary mind behind disruptor burger joint New York Best, which he shared with his brother Tommy.

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The NYB kitchen was famed for introducing delicious pink patties to a landscape that thought the apex of burgers was frying frozen disks of grey meat.

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Nick’s punk rock cooking and Tommy’s guérilla marketing stunts made for a formidable team.

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But just as its rise dazzled, its end was painful to watch.

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Perhaps spread too thin – the now-infamous NYB had gone from one outlet to 3 in just a few short years.

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Or maybe it was just downright mismanaged.

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Either way, I know I am one of many who miss it.

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Focus on quality

In the weeks leading up to Bulubeef’s recent launch, I texted Nick and asked him what he was doing with this new greasy spoon.

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“Focus on quality” was his only reply.

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Big words to live by.

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But they did not ring hollow.

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Because Diacono has done the grind.

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He has spent his entire life in the kitchen.

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He has opened a burger joint, seen it crash, and decided to do it all over again.

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There are questions I would have asked him about Bulubeef.

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‘What beef are you using?’

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‘How are you sourcing your buns?’

But at around 10 pm on a Saturday, Diacono wasn’t there.

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Instead it was being manned almost entirely by South American kitchen staff – something increasingly common in Maltese restaurants today.

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A perfect opportunity then, to see what Bulubeef can produce when left to its own devices.

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As the sound system blared out Latino pop, there was something of the smell of sizzling beef and bacon grease that reminded me of the takeaways of my childhood.

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It’s a special nostalgia for me: devouring a burger in the backseat of my father’s beat-up Skoda as he toured the island as a salesman in a desperate search of a sale.

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These are memories that stay with us our entire lives.

Bulubeef is a toqba takeaway in Ta Xbiex.

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It has no tables.

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It has a sticky plastic laminated menu stuck up on the wall.

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The aesthetic isn’t finished, but the ideas behind the food are.

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Bulubeef’s fryers are filled, not with soya bean or peanut oil, but with tallow – a rendered beef suet.

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The fries it produces aren’t bimbos. They have a deep and rich personality.

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My only gripe is that there could have been more of them for my grease-slicked fingers to pick at.

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Next, the bacon cheeseburger.

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It is exactly what you want it to be.

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A lot was being said about the bacon cheeseburger- and yes, it is solid.

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The bun was soft with a smattering of sesame seeds.

The patty, about an inch tall, is not a smash burger but has the seared Maillard crust of one with a juicy pink centre that sauces the buns.

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There are other things on the menu.

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I’m happy to report that chicken scraps are back – a New York Best staple.

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In fact an entire chicken section.

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And Diacono has introduced deep-fried Gbejna and battered Enoki mushrooms (an excuse to return).

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But I was more interested in the weird kid at the back.

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The malcontent child of this broken culinary home.

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Or what Diacono has called ‘The Paisano’.

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To me, this stood out.

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The same beef patty, seasoned with Gozo sea salt, but tucked into a thick duvet of melted sweet provolone and joyous grilled mortadella.

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I don’t know if Diacono was remembering his own childhood with this.

If he too sat in the car with his dad after another sales meeting on the road.

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“There’s always the next chance to make a sale – that’s life, ibni,” I can still hear my own father saying.

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Perhaps his too?

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I don’t know. Because I don’t know Nick. Not really. Not in that way.

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But eating that burger, I felt like I understood something about him. Like he was sharing a part of himself.

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Bulubeef exists, not because of fashion or trends.

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It exists because Diacono exists – with his wins and his losses, his memories, and his story, which he continues to write.

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In this way, I suppose it is a personal place, in what can so often feel like such an impersonal world.

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And that is something worth writing about.