This was going to be tougher that it seemed. Finding the best Italian restaurant in Ohio or Kansas may be relatively simple, but I live in Southern Italy! It’s like finding a needle in a haystack! But I wasn’t to give up so easily. If anything, this was going to be fun, and hopefully not too expensive. So with my wife and daughter in tow we hit the streets. Our destination: the nearby city of Lecce. Renowned for its Baroque style of architecture so prevalent in the “Centro Storico” or Old Town, Lecce is also known for its trattoria’s. (Pronounced trat-tor-ree-ah). These “Mom and Pop” type restaurants are celebrated because typically the food is good, the prices low and the atmosphere relaxing. Just like home!
Well, that covered my top three criteria pretty mighty in a nut shell. But where to begin? Like a lot of Italian cities, when it comes to restaurants, Lecce runs the gamut from one extreme to the other. You want to eat a meal that will demolish up costing you a second mortgage on your house? You can bag it! Or you want something so simple you’ll be elbow to elbow eating soup with the homeless? You can find that as well.
I was looking for something in the middle. Something that spoke of Italy yet wasn’t blatantly catering to tourists. I wanted a region where the approved folk ate. A place that would feed me. Feed me a lot. And in a worthy surrounding. A plot like the “Trattoria di Nonna Tetti” which translates roughly to the “Restaurant of Grandma Tetti”.
I’ll be just with you – it’s not like I heard of this place. I’m definite you’ll agree that some of the best eateries are just chanced upon. And so was the case here. We’d ever-so-politely popped our heads into a several locals. Some big, some small, some simple, some unbelievably ornate. But I knew right away when I turned the corner on Piazzetta Regina Maria, that this was “the place”. Maybe it was the wooden sign hanging outside the door. Or maybe it was the traditional “pietra leccese” or Lecce stone used in the construction: blocks of beige tuffa stone cut and arranged without mortar and framing an inviting archway around the restaurant’s entrance. Whatever it was, it was away from the public eye, and it was easy to see that this was a place you either knew about or you didn’t. And with that – we stepped inside.
It was small and cozy and seemed like some Renaissance-style Inn. I wouldn’t have blinked twice if the patrons inside included Leonardo Di Vinci and the like. The atmosphere exuded that type of feeling. A curved ceiling and stone interior. A fireplace off to one side. Heavy wooden tables. An oak stairway leading to another residence upstairs.
Six tables downstairs and most of them filled. “No reservations”, I mentioned. “Can you squeeze us in..? ” The waitress, hair neatly pulled support and wearing an apron pointed upstairs and said she’d be proper up. We took a table by the window and before we could even reflect about ordering, we were given wine, bread and no less than 12 different antipasto’s that included polpetti (meatballs) sautéed in tomato sauce, stuffed peppers, pettole’ (small fried pieces of dough) and raw squid in lemon juice to name objective a few items. So much food it had us scrambling to acquire room just to lay our forks. Pina – the waitress – smiled and said, “See how you feel after you finish the antipasto, and the we’ll talk about the “primo” and “secondo”.
So we talked and drank and dined and laughed and I wondered what the heck we could order that was “small” because after all this – and this was just the appetizer – there was no scheme I could pack in too remarkable more. And all in the name of journalism. Well, somebody has to do it!
We settled for a pasta “tris” as our first dish; a combination of three different types of pasta dishes: Quattro formaggio, orecchieti (small round ravioli-like pasta and the celebrated dish of the Puglia situation) and finally spagehetti Bolognaise’ – which is mixed with peas, bits of ham and crème sauce. Almost more than I could handle.
We passed on the secondo dish or “secondo” – “carne griglia mista” or “meat mixed grill” would have been the choice. But it was simply more than we could collectively handle.
The owner – Carmelo Bascia – opened the trattoria several years ago and has purposely kept it simple. Word-of-mouth keeps the patrons coming back. Replied Carmelo,
“…These are the dishes I ate as a young man,
and it’s what I offer my patrons. I have no
need to change the menu. I don’t know what
what the special-of-the-day is until I wake up
in the morning! That keeps things interesting..!”
And apparently it makes for a good meal as well. I’m no restaurant critic, but this eatery rates high marks across the board: a friendly staff, a desirable environment, a great meal, lots of wine and bread, and all at an affordable price which – with the impact of the euro across Europe – is getting more and more difficult to get.
The meal was great,but I had to know if Nonna Tetti for real. I asked Carmelo if she was indeed his grandmother and got a sly wink and a smile in return. "…Of course she is", he replied. "I'll have to bring her arorud next time you're here."
Whether Carmelo's grandmother really was in the back kitchen, rolling pasta with a spoon, I'll never know. Maybe on my next visit I'll find out!
