Caffe Cordina, Valletta

The claim

Malta's best-known caffè keeps part of the ground floor of the Casa del Commun Tesoro on Republic Square, where the Knights of St John once counted the treasury's money. Cordina serves coffee, cannoli and hot food from the counter under painted ceilings, with tables out on the square. The family's story begins in 1837 with a grocery in Cospicua; these rooms were bought from the Casino Maltese in 1944.

What the records show

Cordina's own line is that it has been serving since 1837, and its own history explains what the year belongs to: John Cordina's great-great-grandparents, who came from San Gimignano, set up shop that year in Cospicua, across the Grand Harbour from Valletta, and sold goods from their homeland with a horse and cart. A bomb closed that shop in the Second World War, and Cesare Cordina took these rooms from the Casino Maltese in 1944. So the date belongs to a family grocery in another town, and coffee has been served at this address for a little over eighty years — the hot counter and the island's first Gaggia machine both arrived under Cesare in the early 1950s. The rooms are part of the Casa del Commun Tesoro, built for the treasury of the Order of St John, later the island's first post office and a hotel. The house sells coffee across a counter to anyone who walks in, which answers the question of whether a drink is served without a meal. Two Maltese publishers were read on 18 September 2026 and they sharpen the year and correct a word of it. The business news site BusinessNow, in December 2021, has John Cordina — Cesare's son, born on 22 September 1944 — putting the opening of the caffè at 11 November 1944, and saying that his father rented the Valletta building, then owned by the Casino Maltese, rather than buying it. This page had it as a purchase; the tenancy is what the family says. The same interview has Cesare and his brother Ottone keeping the Cospicua confectionery that the bomb destroyed, close to the dockyard; the caffè at first taking only the middle of the building, where the bar is, with Cesare's wife in the pantry and one employee, Frans Cutajar, who came at fifteen and stayed until he was sixty; the Giuseppe Calì ceiling paintings going up in the year John was born, in frames his father remade from the wood of egg boxes after the wartime removal chipped the originals; and Cesare afterwards taking in the British Pharmacy next door and a tobacconist on Old Theatre Street. The food magazine Served, in January 2023, has the third generation, Luca Cordina, giving the same 1837 in Bormla and the same move in 1944, and describing what the house is now: a confectionery kitchen underground, seats out in Pjazza Regina, an ice-cream counter opening on to Republic Street, and a deliberate push to be read as a restaurant as well as a caffè. Malta's own registers refused for a fourth night, so the Grade 1 scheduling of the Casa del Commun Tesoro is still something this page has from an encyclopaedia article and not from the register.

What to look for inside

In the Casa del Commun Tesoro, once the treasury of the Order of St John
The Cordina family's 1837 date belongs to a shop in Cospicua
These rooms bought from the Casino Maltese in 1944
First café in Malta to install an espresso machine, in the early 1950s

Visiting

Caffe Cordina is in Valletta, Malta, at 244 Republic Street, Valletta VLT 1114. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

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