Ramona Depares

• Ramona firmly believes there's no such thing as too much good food. In 2018, she squeezed in four fine-dining restaurants in London while on a 48-hour assignment for the Times of Malta.
• She is happy to eat pasta every day and believes in simple sauces with high-quality ingredients. Just make sure it's real guanciale in that carbonara.
• She became an advocate for low-kilometer ingredients after interviewing celebrity chef Simon Rogan and chatting with him about ethical sourcing from local farms.

Experience

Based on a tiny Mediterranean island, Ramona turned her love of food into a profession in 2006, when she joined the Times of Malta's features department. In 2007, she was appointed editor of E&D, the in-house, quarterly magazine. She eventually left the role to launch her own independent project, a lifestyle media platform specializing in Mediterranean food and culture. Ramona received three journalism awards from The Institute of Maltese Journalists. She currently serves as the editor of Horeca Malta, the national publication for the hospitality industry. When Ramona is not writing about the best type of tomatoes to use in your amatriciana, she focuses on literary fiction. She is the author of three books: "Beltin: Stejjer Minn Nies Minsija," "The Patient in Hospital Zero," and "Katya—Easy on the Tonic." She is also a visiting lecturer in journalism at the University of Malta.

Education

Ramona, who holds a Doctor of Laws from the University of Malta, has pursued master classes in writing led by celebrated writers Jim Crace and Anthony Horowitz, in addition to training in digital journalism at the university