Restaurants in the province of Lecce

The Salento is the tip, with two seas and a more vegetable-led cooking than you would expect: wild greens here are a dish, not a side.

What you eat here

• Ciceri e tria — hand-made pasta, half boiled and half fried, with chickpeas. The Salento dish.
• Pasticciotto — shortcrust and custard, eaten warm for breakfast. And the rustico leccese, puff pastry with béchamel, tomato and mozzarella.
• Puccia and frisella, twice-baked bread wetted and dressed with tomato and oil.
• Pittule, yeast-dough fritters, and ricotta schianta, the fiery aged kind.
• Wild greens: chicory, wild broccoli, poppy leaves.

The wine

Negroamaro and Primitivo di Manduria (the latter further west), plus Salice Salentino; the Salento rosé is one of Italy's oldest and deserves to be taken seriously.

Opening hours change. The ones on the listings come from public sources and may be out of date. Where a restaurant confirms tables with us, the availability you see is the real one.