Pasticciotto: breakfast in Lecce

Shortcrust pastry filled with custard, eaten warm at a bar counter before nine in the morning.

Shortcrust pastry filled with custard, eaten warm at a bar counter before nine in the morning.

Cured pork neck from the Valle d’Itria: salt, black pepper, garlic and months of ageing.

Invented in 1956 on the Murgia, by a cheesemaker snowed in with milk he could not move. Burrata di Andria is IGP, and it lives 24 to 48 hours.

Sagne ‘ncannulate, the saffron scapece sold from wooden tubs, and a zeppola from the pastry shop.

Apulian food is vegetable-first, bread-obsessed and built on olive oil. Order the way people do here and the antipasti alone will be a meal.