La Cucina di Mamma Elvira

Dined solo at La Cucina di Mamma Elvira and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The staff were welcoming and attentive throughout the meal and even brought out bottle after bottle to sample the different wines they had on the menu. If you are interested in tasting wine from Puglia (or frankly anywhere in Italy), this is the place to go. The food was just as good. I started with the pumpkin soup with blue cheese and had the crispy octopus as a main. Both were wonderful and paired beautifully with the wine recommendations. Cannot recommend enough!

Authentic Salento cuisine. Delicious and beautifully prepared. Homemade Orecchiette with the local deeper shape. Highly recommend. The sign for the restaurant and entrance is hard to find but Google maps location is accurate.

Nice food nice wine nice atmosphere. Wife had the pork grilled and loved it I had octopus which was very good and a local pasta with chickpeas which was a first for me a local dish that I really enjoyed

We had been seated after like 10 minutes without a word before it and waiters were passing us a few times. Thats a mistake, not the waiting time. After that, the service was fast. I ordered 0.75l of lokal beer for 14 euro, thats too expensive but it was my mistake I didnt check the prize. Primi piati were total disaster, both pasta were not seasoned and tasteless. One of them under cooked and I know what Iam talking about. Secondi piati cavalo and octopus were kind of ok, the horse was very good but thats it. Vegetable came in cold as it was like half an hour laying somewhere but you can tell from the foto it was grilled first, I dont know if this is lokal custom to grill a vegetable, then let it cool down and then serve it... During our meal noone checked if the meal is ok for the whole time. With large water we paid 101 eur and we wont be visiting this place again. (Today we visited different place, paid 51 eur for a little more and had much better experience).

Mamma Elvira is an well-established name in the city of Lecce, with several hubs around town that offer local dishes and delicacies. They sell wine in the "Enoteca", seafood in the "Corte", but a friend of mine recommended to stop by the "Cucina" for lunch. It's located close to the center, and I took place on the beautifully decorated terrace. As primo piatto, I took the Tubetto di Gragnano pasta with tomatoes, tuna, octopus and cod. The pasta was boiled to perfection and perfectly "al dente". You get a complementary bag of bread before the meal with high-quality oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. Be sure to save some of the bread to sop up the delicious sauce from your plate (the "scarpetta", as Italians say). As main course I was curious to try the horse meat, a local specialty, and took the sweet & sour eggplant on the side. The meat was tender and melts in your mouth. I personally found the tomato sauce a bit too salty though, and it diverted my attention away from the meat. The eggplant was slow-cooked in cane sugar and vinegar, and complemented the meat very well.

Mamma Elvira was the highlight of our visit to Lecce. The food was delicious and the servers were very accommodating to requests. I left a scarf which was very sentimental to me at the restaurant and somehow didn't realize until we were all the way in Sicily a few days later (it was kind of a crazy trip haha). The people who work there were kind enough to organize a way I could pay remotely to have it posted to the USA so it could be returned to me. They even gifted a very nice corkscrew with the package. Highly recommend this restaurant!

The best local food for very reasonable price, nice atmosphere and good service.

Food wine dessert and coffee all top notch. Didn’t know what wine to have and they offered me two to try from and paired perfectly with the food I ordered. Both were reasonably priced and mentioned when introducing the wine, which I was really grateful for. Piece matching the quality, service and atmosphere