Anthony Manduca pays tribute to some of the prominent Maltese people who died in 2021.
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Carol Calleja, pioneering restaurateur and survivor of the tragic sinking of his yacht
Esmeralda, has died aged 80 – 31 years after he was rescued from a drifting dinghy in a disaster at sea that remained impressed in people’s memories.
But the entrepreneur was also known for his chain of innovative eateries, dating back to the 1970s, with which his name is synonymous, as well as for the Sliema Multi-Storey Carpark, the first of its kind in Malta.
His daughter, Nicole Stilon, described him as a “people’s person”, who loved the restaurant scene. It was “all about meeting and being with people” and he needed that, Stilon said about the larger-than-life character, with an eccentric streak.