The Best Restaurants Near Retrogusto, by the Record

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. 50 Top Italy #7 · The Best Fish Restaurants

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant