Nightlife in Valletta

Valletta's nightlife is small-city sophisticated rather than anything resembling a party capital, which is either a relief or a disappointment depending on what you're after. The city is tiny, one of the smallest capitals in Europe, and by midnight on a weekday much of it has gone quiet, with the action concentrated along Strait Street and a few pockets off Republic Street. What the scene lacks in scale it tends to make up for in character: the bars here skew toward wine and craft cocktails, the crowds are a mix of locals who live in the old city and visitors who've figured out that Valletta after dark feels quite different from Valletta at noon. The honest picture is that serious clubbing in Malta happens in Paceville, the nightlife district of St. Julian's a short taxi ride away. Valletta draws the people who'd rather nurse a Maltese Ambrat on a terrace overlooking the Grand Harbour than queue outside a megaclub. That said, the city has been quietly developing its after-dark identity over the past decade, and Strait Street in particular, once the notorious sailors' entertainment strip that the Maltese called 'The Gut', has been revived into something worth an evening of your time. The rhythm tends to start late by northern European standards. Locals rarely eat before nine, and the bars don't fill until ten or eleven. On weekends things stay livelier until the early hours. On weeknights you might find the whole of Strait Street down to a handful of diehards by one in the morning. Plan accordingly.