When the popular Margo’s restaurant Mistra location was suggested as a Community Hub on Facebook by its patrons, chef and owner Claude Camilleri was pleased but not entirely surprised.

WhosWho.mt caught up with Mr Camilleri to find out why.

“Well,” he starts, “we have always believed and managed our Mistra restaurant as a community. We do a lot of work behind the scenes – not just cooking. We do things in a ways that is not done anymore.”

Like what, we wonder?

“For us, the people are the life of Mistra. Without them we are nothing. People do not just come here to eat. They come and spend eight hours. We have kids playing, climbing rocks and trees or playing with the animals, just simply having a great time.”

“The crying kids not wanting to go home at the end of the day is a testament to this,” he says.

The animals he refers to include friendly cats, several chickens, and Casper and Pumpkin, two horses Mr Camilleri found tied to his gate one morning.

“I think the law had changed and the owners had to get insurance and certificates. Some were killed, while the lucky ones ended up here," he says with his typically sardonic sense of humour.

Events are another key aspect of the Margo’s Mistra experience, with the team organising a variety of events, “not for profit, but to bring people together”.

Mr Camilleri credits this social mentality for their success.

“Someone says, I really like that. We say, sure, take it. We rediscovered the art of giving and it is in giving that we gain so much more.”

“Sure, people pay for the food they consume. And that’s enough to keep us going and continue doing with we do.”

Asked how he and his team will be responding to this new status as a community hub, Mr Camilleri is emphatic in his response.

“It is nice to be acknowledged, but it does not change anything for us. We shall simply keep on doing what we have been doing. We want to do more, in fact. We always wanted to do more.”

Mr Camilleri hopes the new tag will remind people that Margo’s is there for them.

“We want people to take advantage of our location, our resources, our facilities.”

He believes that this approach is especially important in the current environment of social distancing and restrictions.

“We are against social distancing,” he says. “Physical distancing, yes, but we are social animals. We need each other, we need to meet other people.”

Margo’s have not held back making their views known on the political crisis that led to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s resignation last year, and have even capitalised on their outspoken approach through a line of craft beer referencing the local situation.

These include the pilsner Table 14, a reference to assassinated journalist Daphen Caruana Galizia’s favourite table at the restaurant, and the wheat beer Happy Camper, a disgruntled nod to the array of trailers found occupying the Mista beachfront.

Mr Camilleri says that these beers, each with a protest behind the label, reflect the restaurant’s social voice.

“We do things very differently from everyone else. Not for the sake of being different but because we need to be a channel for the people who support us.”

This has gotten the restaurant an amount of flak, but also plenty of admiration.

“People tell us they admire our guts,” Mr Camilleri says with a hint of pride. “They say, ‘We can never do what your do’. But we have no choice. We have to speak up.”

“To be just a restaurant is a bit boring.”

Asked for a final comment, Mr Camilleri calls on others in the business to learn from and copy Margo’s approach.

“We want others to do the same, to give and enjoy the joy of giving and sharing. We want others to copy us. We want to help others to copy us.”