Giardino Segreto — Restaurant in Lecce

Gonna start with a small statement… one of the best meals of my life!

I’m going to get to the food in a bit but I’m just going to set the scene.

You know those stories you hear of people eating in these little hidden restaurants in Italy, no one speaks English, the family of the owners are in there eating too and the food is unbelievable? Well this restaurant ticks every box.

The owner was the sole waiter of this 40 cover restaurant and I’ve never see someone work so hard and not stop moving for 2 hours showing how much he really cares about this restaurant.

Sure, the service wasn’t perfect but it was good and that was all part of the charm. Watching one of the ladies in the family group go up to the kitchen and serve the families plates before sitting down and eating herself was so authentic and enjoyable to see!

Now we get to the food, wow! I enjoy my fine dining and good food but honestly this comfortably sits in the top 3 meals of my life and easily the best I’ve had in my 5 visits to Italy.

1st we had Polpa alla Pignata… octopus with potato that is cooked in a clay pot with a tomato sauce. Both octopus and potato cooked perfectly with so much flavour.

2nd we have cicia e tria… which is half boiled pasta and fried pasta with chickpeas in some vegetable sauce. Honestly the appearance of the dish left me concerned but how the chef was able to add so much flavour to a seemingly bland looking dish was truly the work of a magician.

3rd we have bombette con crema di cipolla… sausages with meat wrapped around them with an onion cream piped through the middle in a Chardonnay sauce. The meat cooked perfectly with great flavour and the sauce left only one option, to be mopped up by the very nice bread given to us at the start of the meal.

Every dish was unbelievably good, my partner agreed too, and this will be the first thing I tell people when I arrive home about my holiday.

Oh yeah, did I mention the beautiful house wine was only €3 a glass, just incase I hadn’t convinced you enough.

The meal came to €85 or €42.50/£36 each, I only wish I could eat such good food at such a low...

Best food we ate our whole holiday!

Me and my partner had dinner here on the last night of our holiday and were blown away by the food and friendly servers. We ate the octopus cooked traditionally for a starter between us and can certainly recommend for any seafood lovers. I had the ciceri e tria (pasta with chickpeas) for a main and my partner had the pasta fatta in casa con sugo di braciole pugliesi (pasta in tomato sauce with pork), both traditional dishes and very tasty. We shared a bottle of local wine for €15 too which was a brilliant compliment to our dinner. The staff were more than happy to help with any questions and offered us some more bread after we had eaten the original portion mopping up the sauce from our starter!

Can't recommend this place enough, would definitely visit again if we return to Lecce.

Might be best to book if you're planning on going as it is quite small, which only adds to the charm, but does mean that if you go later in the evening you may not be able to...

Absolutely no idea how this place can have such a high rating. The food was really bad. I came back home sick after eating the parmigiana – the worst one I’ve had in my whole life. My partner’s pasta were also difficult to finish.

The antipasti mix was plain, without any olive oil and at times disgusting (some cold part of the parmigiana). The bread was dry and disappointing considering how delicious pugliese bread is; and the mozzarella was below average. The owner is pleasant and the garden is quite nice, but there is no way it can make it up for the 20 hour-long stomach pains

Do not be fooled by this rating. It does not make any sens at all and feel clearly cheated. I usually do not post such bad reviews but this place cannot in any way get a 4,7/5. Would definitely...