Uemé
££££│ Pizza (Eat in or Takeaway), Cocktails, Beer & Wine
Evenings │Directions & Opening Times on Google
Uemé burst onto the Lecce pizza scene in mid 2022 and as you walk in you feel like wow this place is buzz as fuck. They've really gone for it. It's like an exhibition space for contemporary twenties lighting (two thousand and twenties that is). There are spacious wooden tables, greenery, a fancy bar, different levels of seating, smooth wooden banquets with USB ports, and Gen Z music, the entire playbook of the modern venue has been delivered here and it’s just impossible to ignore.
The reason it's impossible to ignore is that sat inside Uemé, sipping a cocktail and basking in the perfect level of illumination, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in the meatpacking district, or Chelsea, or the lower east side of New York. But you're not. We’re in Lecce. This is a Lecce pizzeria. And Lecce pizzerias are not like this. Or at least they weren't. Lecce pizzerias have unfashionable music, very bright lighting and menus that go back through the ages. But the people at Uemé seem to be changing that, and I for one am very much on board with their project. Not as any kind of gold standard that the others should aspire to (far from it! I love the old pizzerias and wouldn't change them for a day) but as an alternative, a trendy option, it's fantastic.
The pizza here is ‘creative’. It's basically a Neapolitan pizza base with a range of local/decent quality ingredients geared towards spins/reinventions of classics or entirely new pizza. Amongst our group, there was an outstanding squash and cardoncelli mushroom pizza that was one of the best we've had this year. But there was also a less successful reinvented Caprese that didn't really have any mozzarella or basil (the mozzarella was a kind of cream and the basil a puré, both lacked a little flavour) but still an above-average pizza. They've proudly written ‘Taste Experience’ all over everything which I’d say to a certain extent is an accurate description of dinner here in that everything is a little playful and some things are absolutely wonderful. However, it's still pizza (rather than one of those loathsome truly experimental gastronomic experiences) which is much more to my preference and I think roughly what the owners are going for, if not exactly what the phrase ‘Taste Experience’ perhaps truly implies in my view. When measured by global standards of silly flavours being put together (bacon and egg ice cream, lemon coffee etc. etc.) there aren’t many radical flavour combos, and despite the inventive delivery, flavour-wise I think it’s actually fairly safe stuff.
There's a great list of cocktails, beer on tap and lots of good Italian wine to choose from. Service was friendly and professional, and obviously it goes without saying all the staff were either extremely fashionable, or wearing extremely fashionable aprons, or both.
Uemé is a little serious, but like all serious places, the secret is to not take them too seriously and when you do that Uemé is actually great fun. I’d encourage you to put on your best holiday clothes and get down here for a cocktail or two and then range across the menu and enjoy yourselves. It’s very aircon-y indoor-y so perhaps come on a night when the weather isn't so good, aka super humid or raining. Also for a place that feels like the super-rich could get very comfortable in, it’s very reasonably priced.