Imagine strolling through Puglia’s beautiful town centres, or sitting by the sea at sunset. It’s a delight for your eyes. But what about your tastebuds? The winning combination is to admire the beauty surrounds you and at the same time taste the succulent local specialties. Discover Puglia’s Street Food, made with fresh, high-quality ingredients, and served up in paper cones and eaten on the go. In just one bite you can discover Puglia’s history and traditions.
Quality and authenticity are not options in Puglia. Even if Street Food is a popular trend, don’t think that it’s just a tourist attraction. Puglian excellence is also guaranteed in its Street Food.
Here’s a selection of the best Street Food options in Puglia, including both savoury and sweet, as well as seafood and meat. The possibilities are endless so try whatever you feel like!
Known as Pizzitidd in dialect, this is focaccia with spring onions and is a specialty from the Valle dei trulli. Fresh spring onions are cooked slowly for hours with a little bit of olive oil and then at the end capers, salt, anchovies and black olives are added.
Despite being one of the best-known dishes in Puglia, the octopus sandwich actually was actually only developed recently. It was thought up in 1970 by a fisherman in Monopoli.
If you like strong and delicious flavours then this is the Street Food for you. Filled with rolls of meat: bombette with rosemary, parsley and cheese, and gnummareddi with parsley and wild fennel.
The cherry on the top of everything is this little sweet pastry from Lecce. It is made with a buttery, crumbly dough and filled with crème patissière. There are also other types, like chocolate, or with almond flakes on the top.
The protagonist of Puglia’s Street Food is bread. Some of the most famous products come from small shops, bakeries and food stalls. Meat dishes have a similar history. Puglia is the homeland of “Fornelli” or butchers’ shops with charcoal grills where you “choose, buy, and eat”. Pick the meat you want and it will be cooked immediately on the grill, often in the back of the shop.