Salento covers the southernmost stretch of Puglia – the sunbaked heel of Italy’s boot – if you were to draw a line from Ostuni to Taranto. It’s a landscape of sandy-coloured stone trulli, silvery olive groves, and tiny villages where life moves at a slower pace.
Puglian food specialities in Salento
Puglian cuisine is famously rooted in cucina povera – simple, rustic dishes that may be cheap to make but are rich in flavour. In Salento, that means plenty of pasta, pulses, more carbs and a smattering of seafood. You’ll find orecchiette con cime di rapa on menus across the region: ear-shaped pasta with bitter brassica, anchovies, garlic and chilli, often topped with breadcrumbs instead of cheese. Cavatelli with seafood is another staple – the shell-like pasta perfect for catching the briny, tomato-rich sauce studded with mussels and prawns.
Among the region’s most humble dishes is fave e cicoria – a smooth fava bean purée topped with bitter green leaves (not quite the same as English chicory). Pescatarians will love the local polpo alla pignata – octopus stewed in tomato and herbs in a terracotta pot – while meat eaters should try bombette: small pork rolls stuffed with cheese and grilled. When it comes to sandwiches, don’t miss puccia: crusty bread rolls filled with everything from fried calamari to pistachio-studded mortadella. And those with a sweet tooth will appreciate pasticciotto: shortcrust pastry filled with sweet custard, best eaten warm from the bakery with a strong espresso on the side.
Travel to, from and around southern Puglia
Before you can eat your way around southern Puglia, you’re going to need to get there! Salento’s airport is in the city of Brindisi, served by national carrier ITA Airways as well as many of the usual suspects (some of which are seasonal): Ryanair, easyJet, British Airways, Transavia and Swiss Air. While there are theoretically trains and buses to the larger cities, their frequency is limited and it’s much, much easier to get around by car – especially if you want to pootle around the smaller villages of Salento as well.
Lecce restaurants
The largest city in southern Puglia, Lecce makes a logical start or end point for your itinerary. Lecce’s amphitheatre and cathedral are both postcard-worthy, and foodies are spoiled for choice.
La Cucina di Mamma Elvira
Natural wine fans will like La Cucina di Mamma Elvira: a restaurant and enoteca that stocks hundreds of bottles of wines from both Puglia and further afield. The menu also leans local: we tried aubergine involtini stuffed with salty baccalà and topped with sweet tomato sauce. Next, ciceri e tria, which is true cucina povera: semolina-based pasta with chickpeas. I’m sure it was very authentic, but honestly it tasted a lot better when doused in cheese, salt, pepper and olive oil (additions: mine). On the wine list, there’s everything from tangy orange Verdeca with a whiff of fortification to sweetly comforting red Susumaniello – Puglian wines that speak to the heat of the region.
Otranto restaurants
From Lecce, drive southeast and you’ll arrive in Otranto in under 45 minutes. A coastal city with class, Otranto’s old town is circled by its imposing and impressive castello. There are tourist shops aplenty but they’re boutiquey and original rather than tacky or trashy. If you arrive in Otranto at aperitivo o’clock, take an early evening stroll along the seafront and stop for a spritz at one of the many ocean-side bars.
L’Ortale Ristoro SAlentissimo
There are many nice-looking restaurants in Otranto, but we made a beeline for L’Ortale Ristoro SAlentissimo: an enoteca (wine shop) at the front, with a cellar underneath and a large hidden gem of a terrace that you can only reach via the back of the building. The shady stepped terrace is covered with bright sprays of bougainvillea, making it an atmospheric spot for a bottle of wine and some shareable dishes. There’s the ubiquitous taglieri of course, but also hot meals: Salento’s answer to lasagne comes with meatballs and boiled egg (!) while the local pitta di patate is a comforting dish that tastes like the top of a shepherd’s pie but with added oomph.
Wines are all €5 per glass (May 2025) and I enjoyed a peachy Fiano and a smooth Primitivo di Manduria. That said, the manager had a bit of an attitude and was only keen to serve me wines that were already open – but not others on the menu that were clearly stated to be available by the glass. That small gripe aside, we spent a very pleasant evening under the pinkly dappled sunset at L’Ortale.
Santa Maria di Leuca and surrounding villages
From Otranto, drive down the scenic coast road passing grottoes, gorges and cliffs giving way to the aquamarine waters where the Adriatic and Ionian Seas meet. At the southernmost end of Puglia, there are all sorts of tiny towns and villages to explore, of which these are just a handful that house worthwhile foodie finds.
At the very tip of Italy’s boot heel, Santa Maria di Leuca is a seaside town, pure and simple, but I assume crowds flock there in high season to bake in the Puglian sunshine. Northwest up the coast from Santa Maria di Leuca are Torre Vado and Pescoluse – smaller coastal villages but with some nice beaches towards the northern end. Salve (which means hello in Italian!) is not a big town but it has a nice piazza that’s lit up fetchingly at night. It’s home to several restaurants, of which we only tried one but it was so good that it definitely deserves a stop on your itinerary (see Boukéf below). There’s not much to see in Morciano di Leuca (it’s even smaller than neighbouring Salve) but it makes a handy pizza stop en route.
Mattia Cordella – Santa Maria di Leuca
Perched up high overlooking the ocean, fish restaurant Mattia Cordella is perhaps the most elegant on this list (but we still saw people in shorts and flip-flops, so don’t worry – dressing up is not required). At entrance level, there’s a chic bar for an aperitif before dinner, while downstairs you’ll find the main restaurant – both encased in glass walls on one side for maximum sunset potential.
We tried marinated anchovies, salt cod croquettes and smoked swordfish to start, all of which were simple but expertly prepared. My main was a richly decadent saffron risotto topped with monkfish “osso buco”, which went as well with a high-end bottle of Salento Chardonnay as it sounds like it would. While the food and drinks were all top notch, my only complaint was that the service was a little patchy: sometimes very fast, other times not there when you needed it. But overall, Mattia Cordella provided a lovely experience for a reasonable price point.
Pocca Baguetteria – Santa Maria di Leuca
Meanwhile in central Santa Maria di Leuca, Pocca may be “just a sandwich shop” but locals and visitors alike flock here at lunchtime for their famous baguettes and pucci – the local bread rolls. You can build your own, choosing from at least 20 toppings, or you can choose one of the combinations offered on the menu. We tried a few different variations, and were in broad agreement that mortadella, stracciatella and pistachio was the winning combination.
Caffereccio – Torre Vado
Up the coast to the west and along the main drag through Torre Vado, Caffereccio is beach café with a breezy, blue-and-white terrace and a cosy interior for rare rainy days. The menu isn’t extensive, but Caffereccio serves proper meals as well as plenty of pucci for hearty lunches. My puccia came with lightly fried calamari and seppia (cuttlefish), tartare sauce and rucola – I ate it with a glass of vino bianco but I think a sparkling would’ve been even better. Service was smiley, and the free bruschetta and bread basket at the start of the meal were a nice touch. Caffereccio had a lovely vibe about it – I’d go back tomorrow if I could.
Boukéf – Salve
Housed in what looks like perhaps a former chapel in inland Salve, Boukéf is as atmospheric as it is delicious. To start, order the “Tris di Pignate” to taste three regional Salento dishes: octopus stew is tomato-based and hearty; cime di rapa (generally translated as turnip tops, but it tastes like a bitter form of broccoli) comes with beans and hot chilli powder; and fava beans and chickpeas are simply dressed in something oily and citrussy. If you have room, order the fave e cicoria as well: a hearty broad bean purée topped with more of Italy’s famously bitter greens. I loved it all.
You could probably stop there, but the pasta dishes are also good, as is the wine: high-quality bottles of Puglian Primitivo and Negroamaro go for only €20 a pop. Our entire dinner only came to around €30 per person.
Jordan Pizzeria – Morciano di Leuca
No trip to Italy would be complete without a reliable pizzeria. And in our case, this was Jordan in Morciano di Leuca. All the classic pizzas (margherita, Napoli, quattro formaggi, diavola, etc) are under €10, although there are some “special” pizzas that cost a little more. We became a bit obsessed with their salsiccia (sausage) and tried it on every pizza possible: a pizza bianca with friarielli (part of the brassica family) and salsiccia, a tomato and burrata pizza with salsiccia – you name it, we added sausage. There’s not a huge selection of drinks, but the house beer and wine are very drinkable and very good value.
Gallipoli restaurants
After getting your fill of Salento’s southernmost villages and beaches, head northwest to Gallipoli – the main road will take you only around 40 minutes by car, but of course the coast roads offer a slower, more scenic pace. Gallipoli’s old town is perched on an island that juts out into the sea from the mainland, reminding me of Ortigia island that forms Siracusa’s old town, which I wrote about last month. Much like Ortigia, it’s pretty touristy but understandably so – its maze of streets lead to charming little shops and restaurants around every corner, and plenty of sea views once you reach the edge of the island.
When in Gallipoli, seafood is the obvious choice. And since orecchiette are the Puglian pasta shape, it’s logical that many restaurants in Gallipoli are offering variations on orecchiette allo scoglio (seafood with pasta shells). While the version I ate was very tasty, the restaurant as a whole was nothing to write home about (albeit the sea views were spectacular). If I were to go back to Gallipoli, I’d follow the advice of enoteca owner Gianpaolo (see below) and head to Santa Monaca osteria – which was unfortunately fully booked by the time we got there.
La Cantina del Salento
Not a restaurant but a wine shop, La Cantina del Salento is a literal cellar below Via Antonietta de Pace. Owner Gianpaolo only works with small-scale wineries from the Salento region that produce less than 20,000 bottles a year – meaning all the wines are local and you’re unlikely to find them internationally. When we popped in, he had at least half a dozen bottles of wine open to taste – understanding the sales technique that so many wine shops in Amsterdam seem to lack: when people can taste the wines, it removes the risk that they won’t like the bottle they buy – leading logically to more sales. Unsurprisingly, I came home with several bottles: a refreshing white Verdeca, a fruity Primitivo-based rosé, a fascinatingly creamy dry Muscatello and an oaky Negroamaro.
From Gallipoli, there’s plenty more of Salento to explore. My own trip took me back to Brindisi airport (sadly!) but I’ve had it on good authority from other travellers that it’s worth checking out Alberobello, Locorotondo, Ceglie Messapica, Polignano and Ostuni.