17 Really Useful Things to Know Before Visiting Puglia, Italy — ALONG DUSTY ROADS

The Food Is Regional & Delicious

If you’ve travelled widely in Italy, this will feel familiar rather than disappointing. Puglian cooking is unapologetically regional, and most menus work within a fairly tight framework rather than chasing constant variation or novelty.

Now don’t get us wrong, food in Puglia is delicious. Seafood is plentiful and usually very fresh, pasta is still handmade in many places, pizza is reliably good, olive oil is local, and the bread alone deserves its reputation – we never met a basket we didn’t immediately demolish.

What this does mean is that you’ll see the same dishes reappear from town to town, often prepared in subtly different ways but rooted in the same traditions. For a shorter trip, this is part of the pleasure; for longer stays, it simply becomes noticeable rather than tiring, and some travellers find themselves happily cooking a few meals at home just to balance things out.

Vegetarians are also well catered for, despite Puglia’s reputation for seafood. Orecchiette with tomato sauce is almost always available, vegetables are treated seriously, and even fancier coastal restaurants tend to offer simple, plant-based dishes that feel entirely at home on the menu.

Top tip // There’s nothing like learning to make fresh pasta, from scratch, with your own two hands (although we must admit, having taken three classes thus far, we’re still a long way from being experts!), and the good news for keen chefs travelling to Puglia is that there are an abundance of cooking classes available across most popular tourists spots in the region, including Bari, Lecce, Otranto and Alberobello.