Osteria Le Volte — Restaurant in Lecce

Today we were really disappointed with our visit. We visited this place three quarters of a year ago during our last visit to Lecce and were blown away by it. That's why we came back again today. When we were already placing our order, we felt from the waitress that we were not welcome. The waitress made hints about why we didn't want to order all the courses. One dish was too garlicky and the other with a lot of pepper and basil. The food had absolutely no taste. It reminded us of Indian cuisine, not Italian. We didn't even get the limoncello we ordered and when the staff ignored us after taking away the plates without bringing the digestif for several minutes (while shaking chairs and raising their voices at each other) we decided to pay and leave. Despite the fact that we said hello when leaving, no one greeted us. We are sorry for such an experience, we don't know what went wrong in less than a year and so a great gastronomic experience was ruined.

Update - reply: No one warned us that the kitchen would close soon or would be closed. We asked the waiter in front of the restaurant if you had a free table for two, to which he answered yes and led us into the restaurant. If we had known that you would be closing soon, we would definitely have left the restaurant. However, based on this information, I understand why the waitress was unpleasant to us and her colleague. We had tried the type of food on our last visit, so we know how it should taste. Take this as feedback on how to improve. Or how to work on the communication of the...

I'm not sure why Google is asking me to rate this restaurant as if it were a hotel (rooms, service and location, vs food, service, ambiance), but I'll give it 5 stars regardless. We ate here last night and were so impressed. We always look for authentic, local food spots and this place hit the nail on the head. Friendly staff who indulged our desire to practice Italian (a menu was offered in English but we declined), very generous portions, delicious food, fresh bread, and the price was more than reasonable. Two first courses, two sides, a second course and a dessert, plus a litre of water and a litre of very good house wine was just over €50. I should also add that the sides were much better and more generous than we've had elsewhere. For example, while a side of grilled veggies elsewhere has typically consisted of a few razor thin slices of eggplant and zucchini, at Le Volte we were presented with a good sized plate of broccoli, green beans and an eggplant/tomato dish, all of which were very good. The pace of service was also excellent, we didn't feel rushed, but neither did we have to wait too long for our dishes to arrive. The staff were friendly and informal, yet very attentive. All in all an excellent experience, and we will likely eat here again during our stay....

Unfortunately one of the worst vegan dinners we‘ve had.

It all started ok. Starter was alright- little deep fried pizza dough balls (4€- I‘d say actual cost probably 20 Cents). House wine was alright, too. As we were really hungry, we ordered a couple of different dishes: Orecchiette, Chickpeas with noodles, the so- called Burger and mixed, grilled vegetables.

It was a major disappointment. Both noodle dishes tasted exactly the same - like a big plate of salt. We couldn’t eat it.

The burger, advertised in the menu section as Beyond Burger, turned out to be a cheap patty from the supermarket with a tiny side of salad plus an extra plate of salad from a plastic bag.

All in all, not worth it for us.We ended up paying 43€ for pizza dough, 2 dishes of over-salted noodles, a 50 cents patty from the supermarket, salad from the packet, 250ml house wine, 100gr of grilled vegetables and a small beer. Not a good experience.

To be fair we can only speak for the vegan menu. Service was friendly but not...