From the experience of someone who recently moved there, I don't think you'll regret it. Sliema and St. Julian's are very busy, St. Pauls is where most expats live by percentage now on mainland, more than 60% of people living there are expats I believe. There are also quite a few Canadian products available in supermarkets (and there are a lot of Canadians living here). If you want you can check a major supermarket offering here: greens.com.mt but I've also seen Canadian cheese, Canadian beer, Canadian liquor etc. at specialty shops. Traffic can be bad in the morning, so if you need to be in Valetta a lot make sure to stay close. If you want to check download Wolt and set your location to Malta to check what you can order. A specialty shop I like:
Home - Bottarga. An entire salmon, nice and decently fresh. I turn it into Grav Lax myself when I have the time.
There is also a French shop where you can import godlike Foie Gras by the 500g / kg in case you're from Quebec. The old world style jars that would make any uninitiated visitor immediately perceive you as a man of superior taste ;-).
In terms of areas on Malta itself, the best place in terms of large properties there is Madliena imo but it's expensive. If you need to deal with embassies a lot Ta`Xbiex is the best from what I've been told by some "diplomats". I personally live in Gozo because I don't have to deal with a lot of people and I really like the slow-pace of life and the lack of noise from cars, parties and festas. Top restaurants are however far-and-between on Gozo but I tend to be the chef de cuisine myself anyways.
Right now the weather is absolutely amazing, but during June/July it can get incredibly hot. I was mostly sitting in an AC-ed room in my place because I was working. If you have a boat it is still nice to hit the water, Malta is amazing for that. You'll get to know many other boat-owners in a flash and you can constantly cool off. You can anchor around Comino and have a very good time. Walking through the city in business attire is not the best in 40 degrees, but if you don't smoke and are decently fit you'll only be sweating a ton.
There are air quality issues and there are also undocumented issues with the air containing a ton of construction dust causing cancer. A good air purifier can resolve that problem hopefully. If you need to be in Valetta a lot I would move to Malta mainland and not Gozo. The driving is quite crazy indeed, but not really a necessity anyway since you can order everything online and just take a taxi.
During 40/50 degrees heatwaves I was questioning my decision to move to Malta but now I couldn't be happier. I purchased quite a bit of heavy equipment like ice-cube machines and coolers last week to cement my move. If you'll be able to work with the top brass in politics that's an amazing opportunity that will probably benefit you for the rest of your life. Make sure to get the executive / special person visa that allows for 15%
income tax.
In terms of airlines, most frequent are to London, Southern-Italy, Southern-France, Switzerland and you can always find direct flights to Israel if you need to be there. You can also fly to Cyprus often. For Middle-East you need to often pass through Rome as well as for a lot of other major destinations.
Greens Supermarket is however awesome, and the only good thing we encountered there
What type of food where you looking for that you could only get at Greens? Greens is where I order my food when I'm lazy, but there are 100's of specialty shops with way better food. And Greens has quite a bit of stuff, you can even order French oysters there? If you like good food Malta is heaven on earth, you can get the finest French, Spanish, Italian and British liquor. You can get fresh seafood although the tuna and swordfish is polluted and should not be had too often (Sicilian swordfish carpaccio is just...). There are more variants of cured meat on offer than in most European cities. The biggest disadvantage is that top-of-the-line French cheese can be a bit harder to get.
There is almost nothing you can not order here in terms of machines / appliances. If you want something from the US or Canada you can use a forwarding service. You can use Sicily to forward all European packages.
If you seek for luxury, quality, clean air, nature. This is not the place to be
It's definitely not ultra-luxurious but the air is cleaner than in London or Paris. The amount of nature is small but it's there especially on Gozo and Comino. Yes, it does get old, but what doesn't where you live? I find Valetta a place of incredible charm and among the most beautiful European cities. Malta is the perfect mix for me where I can access all the Northern-European stuff I want while living the simply superior Mediterranean lifestyle majority of the time.
For me personally the fact that it is in the EU has me exploring Montenegro which is right on the Med as well but with way lower taxes (and mountains). However, I doubt it would offer me all the European high-life food I can have here.
@Praetorian
If you like boating as you say it's simply an amazing place, gas is also the cheapest in Europe in case you have a motorboat. You can go to Sicily if you want. If you are adventurous you could even go to Montenegro. It's a playground so ample that you will not want to leave for the foreseeable future. On top of that the local populace is incredibly friendly, speaks decent English if not good English, and it's easy to make friends among them. I've met multiple people who ended up partnering with a Maltese in their business. The girls are remarkably voluptuous for their petite bodies, which I attribute to the consumption of Mozzarella di Bufala any chance they get, which is never a bad thing anywhere. Plus broken English with an Italian / Maltese accent is arguably harder to resistant then French broken English unless you're from Quebec ;-)
Dubai better than Malta? The two are completely different and the comparison is just goofy, to be honest.
I completely agree, I also doubt Dubai has food that rivals the fresh food in Malta. The salmon there must be dry as the desert, the tuna is imported from Malta like the swordfish, and the oysters, the oysters have probably gone bad by the time they arrive in that city and have been handled by slaves who mistake them for something else entirely and keep them in the warmth. And then there are the problems with the more exotics drinks in Dubai, which invariably feel like forbidden fruit instead of something so deeply ingrained in local culture that not taking a bottle to the beach is close to sacrilege.
Fernet Branca Menta, Tedeschi Grappa, Amaro from Montenegro, Mandarin Napoleon, Royal Salute, Penderyn Maderia, Meukow, Citadelle, Montelobos, Chartreuse Vert, Galliano, Italicus and maybe some Marcati Pistachia. You can pour a glass and look down on an artificial city paid for by people who've never heard any of those names and try to feel good about yourself, or you can pour five of them, look upon the azure water while the smell of grilled sardines is penetrating the air while in the meantime tourists are scrambling to get just a single picture of the cave to which you've anchored next to, and feel very very good about yourself to the tunes of Abbronzatissima playing through the speakers ;-).
