Pizza & Co.
…I also want to assert that this is a fantastic pizzeria, that I visit often and I am not slagging it off at all. Other than my semantics about dough (which I realise for many are boring and tiresome) they are obviously as Italian as it gets. The ingredients are excellent and are always fresh (the pizzeria is always busy and they never make pizzas too far in advance). In fact I’m not sure you’ll find a fresher cooked slice anywhere else in Lecce. I’ve often dropped in for a ‘quick’ slice and then walked off, slice in hand, only to find myself turning back around to go and get another one. And then another one. In fact a good tip (especially if all the tables are full) is to eat on the steps of the church next door. My advice: get a slice and a beer and settle in, bum-on-steps, for a couple of rounds of pizza… until you’re definitely full. I can tell you from experience that this is much more relaxing and efficient than constantly walking up and down Via Giuseppe Libertini, as lovely as it is, telling yourself you’re not going to eat anymore pizza, when clearly, you are.
You can also order a whole pizza which they’ll cook for you to order (which is massive and requires about 4 people to get through).
Pizza & Co. is already a well known pizzeria in Lecce especially amongst the tourist community, and with good reason. They know their way around flavour extremely well and deliver slice after slice after slice.
Re Artù
Puccia (a particular type of sandwich from Salento) is the main draw here, as they do it extremely well. Unlike the Puccia joints in the old city, which tend to have a paired back menu of 4 or 5 options, at Re Artù you can have whatever you want. Puccia is €7 (which is pretty pricey for salento), all the toppings are laid out and you point and ask (which is kinda more how the locals do it). Process wise (for ordering) it’s exactly the same as subway basically. I don’t think all the ingredients here are homemade, but a significant proportion probably are, which sit side by side with ketchup and mayo etc which people here love a bit of in their Puccia. You can make it as highbrow or lowbrow as you like, it’s your Puccia, its up to you.
Pizza is by the slice (or rather by the square) or you can order a whole pizza. I’ve only had squares of pizza here and they’ve been pretty good. It’s that old school pizza that kinda reminds me of our school canteen, aka white fluffy style of pizza base (but with much better toppings).
Mister Gastro'
I’ve only been once to Mister Gastro but it’s properly old school. I was served by the Nonna, who was still on the till, and not taking any shit from anyone. Grandson was on the fried section (or he was at least calling the old lady Nonna) and I’d guess at a couple of parents/uncles and aunts running the pizza section. It’s ancient inside, with an old style wood oven (not one of the fancy new Neapolitan space ship things), old school tiles, just well trad basically.
The arancini come absolutely packed with ham, good and moist inside and crispy on the outside. You don’t need to eat much else if you’ve had one of those (like you could get a pizza to share between three/four and an arancino each and I’d say it’d be perfect). There’s also lots of other friend bits and pieces around that I didn’t have time to try but would definitely be worth getting a selection of. In general, the Salantini excel particularly in fritti more than pizza, and that’s definitely the case in Mister Gastro’.