The Top 22 Places to Eat Near Retrogusto
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Rank 1. Retrogusto
Salento Italian
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Rank 2. Primo Restaurant
Mediterranean
A young Puglian chef with a Michelin star and a very strong point of view runs this intimate contemporary restaurant in Lecce's historic center. The kitchen leans deep into the region, then takes a sharp left turn, reinterpreting Apulian tradition through a personal, visually striking lens. Tasting menus run seven or eight courses; an à la carte exists for anyone who rebels against the format. The room is the kind of quiet that lets the food do the talking.
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Rank 3. Cioccolato Maglio
Dessert
A chocolate shop that has been passing the same craft down through six generations, Maglio is the kind of family operation where the institutional knowledge is genuinely staggering. Fruit pralines, chocolate tablets in a range of flavors, gelées, and preserves fill the shelves in a small city in the Salento heel of Puglia. It landed at number ten on 50 Top Italy's praline list, which feels about right for a place this serious about chocolate.
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Rank 4. Bel Ami
Italian Seafood
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Contemporary Neapolitan pizza in the deep Salento, where the crust is the whole argument: aromatic, soft in the middle, and actually crisp at the base. The team leans hard on local and DOP ingredients, and they've put the same care into a dessert menu that holds its own. The dining room mixes exposed vaults and terracotta floors with modern touches, a combination still finding its footing, but the pizza makes you stop noticing fairly quickly.
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Rank 6. Gusti Giusti
Neapolitan Pizza
A Neapolitan-inspired pizzeria in the Salento countryside that splits its menu between classic pies and a more ambitious gourmet line, leaning on DOP products and local ingredients. The garden is the better place to sit, cozy and softly lit in a way the interior hasn't quite matched yet. It earned a spot on 50 Top Pizza Italy's Excellent Pizzerias list, which gives you a sense of the ambition on show.
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Rank 7. Farmacia dei Sani
Modern Italian
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A Neapolitan-style pizza spot in a small town outside Lecce where the dough is quietly the whole point. The multigrain version in particular develops real aroma and a crust that knows when to stop. A tasting menu lets you work through different dough interpretations, which is a more interesting evening than it sounds. The room goes for alchemist theatrics, wood and iron and swing tables, charming in ambition if occasionally less so in practice.
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A pizzeria in a small Salentine town where the kitchen turns out both Neapolitan and Pugliese-style pies, and takes both seriously enough to run a separate production lab for pan pizzas and gluten-free options. The appetizers, frittatas and croquettes among them, are worth the table wait. In summer, tables spill into the square. The wine list is well chosen, the beer selection broader than you'd expect this far south.
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Rank 10. Duo Ristorante
Puglian Italian
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Stone columns and vaulted ceilings from a centuries-old Dominican monastery frame a dining room that goes firmly minimalist, with pale floors and a glass-fronted wine wall as the main decoration. The contemporary menu leans into Puglian ingredients without making a fuss about it. Service is the kind that's attentive without hovering, which in a room this old and serious is exactly what the architecture already asks of everyone.
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A pizza restaurant in Lecce where the dough is made entirely with type 1 flour, kept thin and light enough that a second pie feels like a reasonable choice. The room has a vintage-meets-contemporary look that someone clearly sweated over, and the wine list runs past a hundred labels, which is ambitious for a pizzeria by anyone's measure. Seasonal toppings, a proper dessert menu, and staff who actually know the list. It ranked on 50 Top Pizza Italy.
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Rank 13. Uemé
Contemporary Pizza
A contemporary pizzeria near Lecce's center where the drink list is built around the pies, not bolted on as an afterthought. The dough leans on heritage cereals and sits light, and the menu moves between DOP-anchored classics and more modern combinations using creams and marinated raw ingredients. The room is warm and closely set, and the service knows the menu cold.
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Rank 14. Loop
Croccante Pizza
The thin, crackery crust is the whole argument here: this small, informal Lecce pizza shop has built a following around a lighter-than-expected dough that the team tops with combinations running from straight-ahead Margherita variations to a coffee-inflected house creation. The room is compact and the staff actually pays attention, which is rarer than it should be. A tight but considered wine and beer list rounds things out.
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A Lecce pizzeria spread across two floors with a big outdoor terrace for summer, 400 Gradi has become the city's go-to for Neapolitan-style pizza built on a slow, 24-hour indirect dough. The menu shifts with the seasons while keeping the signatures intact, and the staff can actually talk you through the wine and beer list without making it a performance. The desserts are unexpectedly creative for a pizza place, which is either a bonus or a trap, depending on your appetite.
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Rank 16. L'Acchiatura
Apulian Italian
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A panoramic terrace overlooking Gallipoli sets the scene at this contemporary Neapolitan pizzeria, where the dough leans dry and digestible, with a distinctly Apulian crunch folded into the tradition. The team is young and keeps things moving, and the appetizers are worth grazing through before the pizza arrives. Ingredients pull from both Puglia and Campania, which in this corner of southern Italy is less a marketing note than just good geography.
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A seafood restaurant in Porto Cesareo where the menu follows the catch rather than the calendar, and a raw platter arrives before you've quite settled in. The chef runs the room with her daughters and a staff that's polished without being stiff. Homemade bread and a quiet reverence for olive oil set the tone early. Ranked seventh on Italy's 50 Top Fish Restaurants list, if that helps you decide.
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Rank 19. Pantagruele
Seafood
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Rank 20. ES Cantina&Ristorante
Modern Italian
A tuff-stone building on the Gianfranco Fino wine estate, with picture windows framing the vineyards and a terrace for when you need even more countryside. The restaurant upstairs serves modern meat and fish dishes, many cooked with the estate's own wines, alongside a vegetarian menu built around produce from the kitchen garden. The wine list is essentially the winery's back catalogue, which makes ordering feel less like a decision and more like a tasting.
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Rank 21. Romano – Artigiani del Gusto
Modern Pizza
A deli and bakery that grew a gazebo and became a pizzeria, which is an origin story that explains the room. Sit-down pizza spot on the outskirts of Brindisi, leaning modern rather than Neapolitan classic, with a menu that wanders into broader Italian territory. The wine and beer lists are taken seriously. Charcuterie shows up, though nothing too artisanal. Staff are easygoing, the vibe is low-key, and the cash register has been known to have its own ideas.
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Rank 22. Brunda Pizzeria
Pizza
A pizzeria on Piazza Dante where the dough is the whole argument, worked for digestibility and cooked in separate ovens depending on style. The toppings are restrained and local, letting the crust do the talking rather than burying it. The room keeps it simple, the service pays attention, and lunch and dinner both run daily. A solid neighbourhood pizza shop that takes the craft seriously without making a show of it.