La Cucina di Mamma Elvira

I came for the pasta, I stayed because I couldn’t physically move after eating it. La Cucina di Mamma Elvira should honestly provide wheelbarrows to roll customers out after dinner. The food? Ridiculously good. The kind of good where you start questioning every life choice that led you to eat supermarket pesto before this. The wine list? Longer than my attention span, but somehow every glass magically paired with whatever landed on my plate. The staff didn’t just serve food-they staged a full-scale intervention to stop me from ordering a third round of burrata. (I regret nothing.) In short: if you’re in Lecce and don’t eat here, that’s like going to Rome and ignoring the Colosseum. Except tastier.

Such a great food and wine and lovely chill place to seat. We had excellent (like for real) beef and pasta and eggplant appetizers and Salice Salento wine. Service is a bit annoyed of your existence, however I experienced this across all places in Lecce. We paid approx 50€ per person.

Eggplant rolls with salted baccalà were delicious. Ceci e tria was ok, a little gluggy and overpriced at €15. I asked for dessert recommendations and was recommended the semifreddo with pistachio, unfortunately it was so sickly sweet and not to my taste despite having a sweet tooth. It was like syrup and I couldn’t taste the pistachio. I sat inside at 7:30 because they said they had nothing available (fine by me) but when leaving at 8:30 the terrace was still empty except for one table so that felt a little odd. Ambience was ok but restaurant felt empty, lacks the warmth of other places. A candle or light on my table would help. They also turned away 3 other girls who also arrived at 7:30 opening time saying they were booked until 9:30 but it looked like they could have served them in the time I was there. Restaurant was only 20% full and gives an odd dynamic when so many tables are unused. Very expensive, glass of wine was €10 and ceci dish at €15 should be cheaper and given €3 bottle of 750ml water for one person, a smaller option would have been appreciated as I can only drink so much liquid in one sitting. Really dislike the QR code menus, makes it feel cheap (and I am a young person haha). Nice staff. Overall good food but very expensive for the ambience.

We had a great meal here. The manager was awesome helping us choose a bottle of wine. The eggplant meatballs are a must, but all the food was very good and we really enjoyed it and it’s like a beautiful outdoor seating area like on the edge of the historic district. Their menu is online and as I’m not a fan of photos on the menu if you click on one of the items in the menu, it will then show you a photo which I thought was helpful

Food is good. Service is fast… but a bit too fast. Cleaning away the plates while someone is still eating is not done. And if one person is still waiting for her cocktail while the rest is done with dessert i can tell its not just that attentive. Advice: Nice terras with a breeze but if your sensitive about the surroundings its not your thing.

The food is delicious. The polpette di melanzane were extremely good. We ordered the ravioli burrata with vegetable cream, the ravioli burrata with tomato and basil, fish soup and spaghetti with clams. All dishes were super well done and the service was good and nice.

Perfect food, wine and Italian hospitality. We where here 6 years ago and decided to come back for lunch. The quality of the food and wines are very good. We were able to order two glasses of white wine out of a 2015 bottle that was a very pleasant combination with the cheese platter. The manager told us that it was a bottle out of the 5000 pcs production only. I highly recommend this place.

A bit of an atypical location of the restaurant, outside the historical centre but quietly situated. Despite the terrace being only half full, it took a while before we were allowed to sit down. Still no regrets about our choice because the dishes were deliciously prepared. As a starter an assortment of fine meats such as panceta and parma. Main course cod with a tasty sauce and soft paprika and a linguini with anchovies. Finished with a delicious dessert with salted pistachio and dark chocolate.