Salento Food Guide: What to Eat in Puglia's Salento

They say you can't truly know Salento until you've tasted it. This is a land of cooking that is humble and generous at once, built around bread, vegetables, pulses, fish and one of the finest olive oils in all of Italy. Here are the flavours we'd urge you not to miss on your holiday — from breakfast to that last glass of the evening.

Breakfast: pasticciotto and rustico

It all begins in the morning, and in Salento breakfast is a serious business. The pasticciotto is the undisputed king: a shell of shortcrust pastry cradling a rich pastry cream, served warm. Try it at least once, fresh from the oven.

Fancy something savoury? The rustico leccese: two discs of puff pastry guarding a filling of béchamel, tomato and mozzarella. Paired with a coffee, it's the perfect breakfast at the bar.

Bread and its companions

Salento bread takes centre stage in countless simple, wonderful dishes:

• the puccia, a soft round loaf, often stuffed;
• the frisa (or frisella), bread baked twice until crisp, which you "spunzare" — dip in water to soften — then dress with tomato, oil, oregano and salt: a Salento summer in a single bite;
• the pittule (or pettole), little balls of fried leavened dough, plain or studded with cauliflower, salt cod or tomato.

The classic first courses

Orecchiette are the pasta that says Salento: served the classic way with turnip tops, or simply with tomato sauce. Don't miss ciceri e tria either, an ancient dish of chickpeas and pasta — part boiled, part fried — with a texture all its own.

The garden, the sea and the oil

Salento cooking is first and foremost cooking of the land: seasonal vegetables, pulses, aubergines, peppers, and the famous "municeddhe" (snails) for the more adventurous. Then comes the sea, with fish and raw seafood all along the coast. Tying it all together is the extra-virgin olive oil, which here is truly extraordinary.

The wines: Negroamaro and Primitivo

You can't talk about Salento without its great reds. Negroamaro and Primitivo are native grape varieties, giving rise to warm, generous wines that pair beautifully with traditional dishes. A visit to a winery during your stay is an experience well worth the trip.

Eating well, living the land

The beauty of Salento cuisine is that you won't find it only in restaurants: you breathe it in at the summer food festivals, in the markets, in the little shops of the villages. Staying in a masseria, surrounded by the countryside that grows these flavours, is the most authentic way to live it: in the evening, after a day of sea and old towns, you realise that the table, too, is part of the journey.