By Seth Sherwood Photographs by Matteo de Mayda

Seth Sherwood has been writing about Italy for the Travel section since 2008.

July 9, 2026

• Rustic La Vecchia Osteria da Totu restaurant draws locals seeking traditional regional dishes and wines.
• Martinucci cafe serves coffees, pastries, gelato and other (mostly) sweet treats in a big, gleaming space.
• An elegant stone-walled restaurant, Blunotte specializes in seafood, including crudos, carpaccios, pastas and grilled daily catches.
• Santavoglia elevates ingredients of Puglia’s old-world cucina povera — food of the poor — into contemporary dishes.
• Decorated like a quirky grandmother’s home, Caffè Rudiae, serves cakes, cookies and many other baked goods.
• For drinks with views, the front patio of Tranquillo sits practically alongside Lecce’s Roman amphitheater, while Sira’s rooftop bar overlooks Basilica di Santa Croce.
• Small, bright and cheerful, Pezzetto is the new wine bar from the Quanto Basta team.
• The cafe Filiera draws a bohemian crowd eager to sample the bar’s numerous natural wines.
• Folia, a sultry lounge and rooftop bar, specializes in natural wines and original cocktails.

• Silente sells loose linen dresses and other flowing creations by the Leccese designer Francesca Iaconisi.
• Finely sewn embroidery, fringes and filigree decorate the chic women’s fashions at Ijo Design.
• Milè bursts with vintage Italian designer clothing and accessories for both sexes.
• The indoor Mercatino Porta Rudiae houses stands selling local wines, cheeses, charcuterie, pasta, fruits, vegetables and grilled meats.

• La Fiermontina Palazzo Bozzi Corso occupies a majestic 18th-century edifice with a garden, private rooftop bar, artwork-filled salon and games parlor with a chess board and card table. The 10 rooms mix white marble, parquet floors, Moroccan carpets and original art. Rooms from 391 euros, or about $445.
• The elegant Palazzo Zimara opened two years ago in a 1500s mansion. In addition to 16 airy, uncluttered rooms, the hotel features a bar-restaurant serving wines from the proprietors’ own vineyards. Rooms from €241.
• A five-minute walk from the Centro Storico’s walls, Glass House is a modern hotel with 20 angular, minimalist rooms and a rare bonus: parking spots. Rooms from €89.
• Short-term rentals, many of them in centuries-old buildings, abound in the Centro Storico.

• You’ll rarely need to leave the Centro Storico, whose compact size and stone-paved streets are perfect for walking. To travel farther afield, Lecce operates a bus network (tickets purchased on board cost €1.50) and a taxi-hailing app, InTaxi, which provides advance fare estimates, though it can be slow. You can also call InTaxi directly (+390832051) to order a car from an operator. The meter starts at €5; the minimum fare is €10. Culture Hub, a private tour agency in the Centro Storico, rents bicycles for €15 per day (€30 for electric bikes).

4 p.m. Look down on Lecce

Lecce’s most dramatic square, Piazza del Duomo, offers both an introduction to the city’s Baroque architecture and panoramic views from atop the cathedral. Inside the Antico Seminario, a former religious school that now contains a ticket office (and a museum of religious art), you can purchase a LeccEcclesiae ticket (€21), which grants admission to the museum, the cathedral’s bell tower and several nearby churches. The box office also sells tickets for a sound and light experience in Lecce’s Santa Croce basilica (€15) and a guided tour of multiple Lecce churches (€20). Then cross the square, ride the elevator to the top of the 236-foot tower and gaze at the church towers, orange-tile roofs and blue of the Adriatic Sea, roughly seven miles away.

6 p.m. Sip a history-rich aperitivo

In balmy Lecce, an early evening drink supplies both refreshment and a brush with history. The outdoor patio of Tranquillo, a sleek modern bar and restaurant, provides Negronis (€8) and front-row seats overlooking the stone arches and seats of the first-century Roman amphitheater. To fly higher, the cushioned chairs and couches of the softly lit Sira rooftop bar are ideal for enjoying an Aperol Spritz (€15) or signature cocktail like Red Passion (Negroamaro rosé, Chambord and soda; €16) while admiring the intricately chiseled saints, symbols, strange characters and creatures adorning the Baroque facade of Basilica di Santa Croce across the street. If you’re already hungry, the bar serves an aperitivo-hour assortment of six canapes — from shrimp tartare to smoked burrata — with a choice of cocktail (€50).

8 p.m. Eat the Adriatic

Service can be slow at Blunotte, a warmly decorated seafood restaurant with stone walls, wrought-iron lamps and velvety chairs. But all is forgiven when the sublime signature pasta (€22) arrives. Composed of spelt-barley linguine and topped with burrata, pistachios, raw shrimp, lime juice and Parmesan sauce, the mix is a chewy-creamy-crunchy-citrusy delight. Grilled tuna strips (€18), thick and tender as filet mignon and dusted with crumbled pistachios, are also exquisite. Oysters (€7), mussels gratin (€12) and fresh daily catches also abound.

10 p.m. Toast the newcomers

Since 2013, Quanto Basta has been the star of Lecce nightlife, garnering awards — including Italy’s best cocktail bar — for the wondrous concoctions (€10) served at its jam-packed outdoor tables. (The LED cocktail is a prime example: tequila, mezcal, blue coconut liqueur, salted pineapple syrup, fennel cream and something called “fake lime.”) Lately, two ambitious new watering holes have further boosted Lecce’s nightlife profile and expanded its offerings. On a twinkling rooftop, the sophisticated and sultry Folia specializes in fermented drinks — craft beers, house kombuchas, natural wines from Puglia — and original cocktails like the Whisk It All (Bulleit rye, semidry marsala, fig-leaf cordial and hazelnut bitters; €9). More loose and lively, Filiera uncorks scores of natural wines from Puglia and beyond — including a light Primitivo (€7) by Masseria La Cattiva — for the oenophiles lounging in its outdoor chairs.

Patrons nurse drinks outside the acclaimed cocktail bar Quanto Basta, a short walk from Piazza Sant’Oronzo.

10 a.m. Go to church

Start with Caffè Leccese (coffee with almond milk over ice; €2.30) and pasticciotto (a local oval-shaped pastry containing custard cream; €1.80) in busy Piazza Sant’Oronzo at Martinucci cafe and bakery, which overlooks the column and statue of St. Oronzo himself. Then use your LeccEcclesiae ticket to access more Barocco Leccese style. Chiesa di San Matteo features an ornamented facade and flamboyant gilded interior columns, while Chiesa di Santa Chiara, another highly decorated church, bursts with chubby sculpted cherubs. A 15-minute walk outside the Centro Storico, Chiesa dei Santi Niccolò e Cataldo has ceilings painted with dazzling frescoes.

1 p.m. Try a Lecce lunch

With its stone ceiling, tile floor and caned chairs, La Vecchia Osteria da Totu draws Lecce families and couples for its rustic atmosphere and traditional local specialties, particularly horse steaks and stews, which have been eaten in southern Puglia for centuries. Starters include classics of cucina povera (“food of the poor”) from the surrounding Salento region, like fave e cicoria (a fava-bean purée with chicory; €10) and ciceri e tria (boiled pasta, fried pasta and chickpeas; €10). Among pastas, the sagne ’ncannulate (twisted loose noodles in thick tomato sauce with goat-cheese ricotta; €8) rate special mention; likewise the fatty-crispy slabs of grilled pork neck capocollo (€9).

3 p.m. Tour the museums

Family-owned art museums have been popping up in the northern Centro Storico. Opened in 2018, Fondazione Biscozzi Rimbaud (€8 admission) features postwar abstract art by the likes of the German-born painter Josef Albers, a key Bauhaus figure, along with Italian pioneers like Alberto Burri, a founder of the Arte Povera movement. (Unrelated to cucina povera, this movement began in northern Italy in the 1960s and championed the use of discarded fabrics, scrap metal and other detritus in sculptures, installations and additional art forms.) Nearby, the two-year-old Fiermonte Museum (€10) showcases prewar and midcentury works by the Puglia-born artist Antonia Fiermonte and her two successive French husbands, René Letourneur and Jacques Zwobada, important members of the Paris art scene who were known for their powerful, poetic sculptures.

6 p.m. Shop for summer threads

A stylish summer wardrobe awaits in the street called Vico Giuseppe Palmieri. Sewing machines and rolls of deadstock fabrics testify to the all-handmade ethos of designer Francesca Iaconisi and her shop, Silente. Her creations include a shiny padded purple poncho (€230) and a mauve cashmere sleeveless jacket (€250). For chic womenswear with expertly hand-sewn fringes, draping, embroidery and filigree, browse Ijo Design, the boutique of the designer Annalisa Surace. Milè vintage shop, meanwhile, awaits with Armani ties (€45), Ferragamo scarves (€180) and tons more.

8 p.m. Sit down to a modern meal

After stints at renowned restaurants in Melbourne and London, the Lecce-born chef Antonio Camilli opened Santavoglia, a sleek, gallery-like restaurant, in 2023. A trained musician, Mr. Camilli creatively remixes modest cucina povera ingredients — turnips, chicory, chickpeas, pork — into contemporary compositions. To wit: chunky crushed potatoes overlaid with charred chicory and vinegar-marinated mussels (€16); capacollo scallopini covered in shaved Middle Eastern black lemon alongside dill Béarnaise sauce (€21); and confit of red croaker, a mild, firm-fleshed white fish, with wakame alongside a chickpea stew (€23). Pear compote with Gorgonzola ice cream is the standout dessert (€7).

10 p.m. Get your last licks

Via Salvatore Trinchese, a central boulevard lined with big international chain stores, is also home to two excellent ice cream parlors that stay open late on Saturdays, after the shops have shuttered and the evening crowds disperse. Nearly 50 years old, the big, bright Natale pastry shop is the old-school favorite, thanks partly to chocolate flavors that incorporate embellishments from rum to peppercorns to dried orange (cups and cones from €3.50). Tiny and friendly, Settimo Cielo creates gelato versions of internationally beloved sweets, including Oreo cookies, Snickers bars and Baci chocolate mounds. They also serve classic flavors like Stracciatella (a cheese made with cream-soaked mozzarella curds) and cassata Siciliana, inspired by a Sicilian cake topped with marzipan and dried fruits. Cups and cones start at €3.

Rebuilt on the site of its original 15th-century structure, the ornate Chiesa di Santa Chiara is a Baroque masterpiece, featuring twisted columns, vivid frescoes and a cartapesta (papier-mâché) ceiling.

10 a.m. Survey the market

Adorned with neo-Classical columns and statues, the 1703 city gate known as Porta Rudiae is a lovely backdrop while you sip cappuccino (€1.80) and munch fruttone, a chocolate-topped pastry filled with marmalade (€2), at the outdoor tables of Caffè Rudiae, a delightfully dowdy repository of gramophones, model ships and other relics. Next door, Mercatino Porta Rudiae houses market stalls selling Pugliese specialties like cooked pork rolls (around €1.50 each), anchovy filets (€3.49 per 100 grams) and cacciocavallo cheese (€1.99 per 100 grams) for a makeshift lunch later on. To glimpse another grand gate, walk up Viale dell’Università and behold Porta Napoli, a monumental 16th-century arch.

11:30 a.m. Discover Jewish Lecce

Jewish communities in Puglia date to the Roman Empire, reaching their height during the Renaissance. In Lecce, the community plied diverse trades — dyeing, tanning, metalwork — before Jews were expelled from southern Italy in 1541. One of several iterations offered on Sundays, the 11:30 a.m. guided tour of the Jewish Museum, or Museo Ebraico (€25) — a barrel-vaulted underground space on the site of a former synagogue — imparts stories of Lecce’s Jews through photo exhibits, virtual-reality experiences and a walk through the former Jewish quarter.