Old Maltese town buildings were not designed with commercial kitchens in mind. The walls are thick, the rooms are narrow, and the routes to a legal discharge point for extraction ductwork are rarely straightforward. In Naxxar, a new operation has fitted out exactly this kind of space: a cooking kitchen at the back, a service counter at the front, and a full extraction system routed through the building to get here.
We do not know the concept yet. What we can show is the work.
The kitchen
The main kitchen runs along a tiled back wall. The cooking line sits under a Combisteel extraction canopy with a baffle-filter array, and above it the fan unit and duct transition are already in position, connecting the canopy throat to the main run that carries exhaust out of the building. A gas range and flat griddle sit on a Combisteel refrigerated undercounter base, putting cold prep storage directly beneath the cooking surface. In a kitchen this size, that matters: there is no room for a separate cold prep position, so the cooking station and the cold storage occupy the same footprint.
A stainless hand-wash sink is mounted to the wall alongside the line. The photographs catch the kitchen mid-installation: the wall opening through to the service area is still exposed, plumbing connections are visible, and the electrical board is fitted but not yet enclosed. This is the right sequence. Equipment goes in before the finishing trades close everything up, so clearances, connections, and service access are established correctly from the outset.
Refrigeration across the site
Three refrigeration formats across two spaces, all within the Combisteel and Ecofrost family. In the cooking kitchen, the undercounter units beneath the line handle working cold storage at the point of use. In a separate preparation and storage room, a large upright Combisteel cabinet handles bulk cold alongside a second undercounter fridge. A set of boxed Combisteel heat lamps sits ready to be installed on the surface beside it. The traditional timber-and-ironwork window in that room, characteristic of older Naxxar construction, reads clearly in the photograph. The building's character does not disappear when the kitchen equipment arrives.
The front service counter runs Ecofrost. Ecofrost is Combisteel's refrigeration brand, and the two units here are well chosen for the position: a wall-mounted saladette topping rail with a glass sneeze guard keeps prepped ingredients at temperature without pulling staff away from the service point, and an Ecofrost undercounter unit beneath it provides additional cold storage directly at the counter. Specifying Ecofrost alongside Combisteel fabrication means the entire refrigeration estate across the site sits within a single support relationship, which simplifies after-sales considerably.
Fitting out two separate spaces in an old building means the refrigeration brief doubles. The solution here was to keep both spaces within the same brand family, which keeps the service and support picture clean.
Extraction
The extraction work is the least visible part of this installation and the most consequential. Image six in the series shows what sits above the canopy: a centrifugal fan housing, the aluminium transition duct connecting it to the canopy below, and the start of the main run heading out of the building. In a new build, that run has a clear path. In an old Maltese town property, it does not. Walls are loadbearing, ceilings are low, and the route to a legal rooftop or external discharge point involves navigating whatever the building presents. That work happens before anything is sealed in, which is why these photographs show it mid-progress rather than finished.
The canopy itself is sized for the cooking line. That balance between extraction capacity and the output of the equipment beneath it is not a detail to approximate: too little airflow and the kitchen fills during service, too much and the make-up air problem increases energy consumption and draws conditioned air out of the room. The specification here reflects the actual cooking positions installed, not a round number.
If you are planning a commercial kitchen in Malta, whether in a new build or an existing property, we are glad to help think it through. Get in touch with the Spiteri Catering team and tell us what you are working with. We cover everything from initial consultation and design through to supply, professional installation, and ongoing technical support.
Related reading: Four Brands, One Kitchen | Clean Air Is Not a Luxury in a Commercial Kitchen | What Goes Where: Choosing the Right Refrigeration for Your Commercial Kitchen