PERFECT PUGLIA
This secret gem in the heel of Italy proves to be a foodie’s delight: not to mention its delightful vineyards, beaches, castles, culture, baroque cities and much, much more.
Standing in the kitchen of the Puglia Culinary Centre in the bosom of the 17thcentury Castello di Ugento, I learn a generations-old cooking lesson embodied in one beautiful word: “Mantecare!” It means to amalgamate the sauce by tossing it repeatedly with the starch from cooked pasta so that it is creamy and rich-tasting, without the need to add butter or cheese.
We are making Puglia’s iconic orecchiette con cime di rapa (‘little ear’ pasta with broccoli rabe and anchovies), a classic early spring dish.
Encapsulating the spirit of Puglia’s cucina povera, or peasant cooking, with its focus on fresh, seasonal vegetables; handmade pasta; olive oil and seafood, this dish defines today’s healthy eating and embodies the spirit of what is colloquially called the ‘heel of Italy’. We’re taking a Pugliese cooking class with several other guests at this superb boutique hotel, which rose phoenix-like from the ruins of an ancient fortress not far from the tip of the stiletto heel.
Cooking and eating are an ideal way to access the heart and soul of this ancient region, dotted with 1,000-year-old olive trees, wheat fields and vineyards, and framed with the seafood-rich waters of the Ionian and Adriatic Seas. As it turns out, what is old is new again. Puglia is listed as Number 18 on The New York Times’ list of 52 Places to Go in 2019.
It may have been a bit lost in the tourism shuffle as the likes of Tuscany, Venice and Piedmont attracted the voracious appetites of modern-day travellers, but over the centuries, Puglia was at the crossroads of Western and Eastern civilisations.
Wave after wave of invaders included the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Ottoman Turks, French and Spanish. The first Roman highway, the Appian Way, ended at Brindisi where the crusaders set sail for the Holy Lands.
Today, you’ll discover Roman ruins, Norman castles, and baroque churches and palazzos carved out of the buttery local limestone, not to mention masserie (fortified farmhouses) and trulli (striking conical, drystone houses), both of which are unique to Puglia.
What you don’t find are masses of tourist hordes. That said, Puglia is not pristine. There are beautiful vistas, to be sure, but whitewashed villages and aquamarine coves can butt up against 20th-century concrete apartment
blocks and industrial warehouses. At times, you have to focus on the gems and curate out the rest.
You’ll also need a car to explore this remarkably diverse region that stretches for 400 kilometres along Italy’s south-east coast.
There’s the wild, mountainous Gargano National Park covered in ancient beech forests in the north and the high wheat-growing plains around Altamura (Puglia is Italy’s bread basket) to the trulli-decked Itria Valley laden with orchards and vineyards (the region’s 1,000-year-old wine culture began with Greeks), all the way down to the flat olive-grove-dotted Salento region in the south. Not only that, Puglia is framed with rocky coves along the Adriatic’s jagged coastline and golden sands rimming the Ionian Sea, nicknamed the ‘Mediterranean Maldives’ because of its azure waters.
REBUILDING THE CASTLE
In Salento, Castello di Ugento has been the passion project of former PepsiCo CEO Massimo d’Amore and his partner Diana Bianchi, who have spent most of their adult lives outside Italy. “This project was a way for us to come back to our roots,” says Bianchi.
D’Amore is a direct descendant of the family who arrived here in 1643 and transformed the ancient fortress into a baroque palazzo. He fondly remembers the summers he spent with his grandfather, who was the last inhabitant before he died in 1979.
After that time, the castle fell into ruin and, looking at the before-andafter photographs, it is not surprising to learn that the couple spent A$24 million on the restoration of the imposing honey-stone building.
Today, the soaring light-filled space features nine distinctive suites with vaulted ceilings and contemporary Italian furnishings from the likes of Cassina and Minotti, as well as exquisite locally made linens and toiletries. The restored 17th-century Garden of Useful Plants is brimming with herbs and fruit trees, including two ancient pomegranate trees. On the piano nobile (the main, or ‘noble’ floor), room after room of exquisite 17thcentury ceiling frescoes evoke love scenes from Greek and Roman mythology, commissioned by the family to honour their name.
Food is at the epicentre of Castello di Ugento and, as with everything here, the new is always informed by the old. We dine at the
contemporary Il Tempo Nuovo restaurant, where chef Tommaso Sanguedolce reimagines traditional seasonal Pugliese recipes with a light 21st-century flair. The restaurant’s glass floor reveals the foundations of a 12th-century Norman tower whose centre comprises stones from the Messapian Age that dates to 600BC.
“We only discovered the tower in 2015 when restoring the space,” says Bianchi, “and now we’re creating an Italian wine-tasting centre in the adjoining underground cisterns.”
As fervent believers in the nutritional healthy elements of the Pugliese diet, d’Amore and Bianchi also placed their state-of-the-art professional cooking school at the epicentre of the castle.
Now, the prestigious Culinary Institute of America trains its fourthyear students in Italian cooking here. Guests like me can benefit from this incredibly rich lode of culinary talent and technology through cooking classes customised to their interests and skill levels.
Armed with this grounding in the food and philosophy of Puglia (and Bianchi’s insider advice), we head out to explore Salento.
First stop is the fortified old town of Gallipoli, which embodies its Greek name of ‘beautiful city’ much better than its Turkish counterpart. At the buzzy fish markets, we ogle glistening just-caught octopus, prawns, clams, sea urchins and a whole kaleidoscope of Mediterranean fish before diving into a selection of crudo (raw) shellfish at the rough-and-ready La Lampara.
MORE TO EXPLORE
Turning inland, we drive past olive groves to Fondazione Le Costantine, which supports the local production of handcrafted linens on ancient wood looms, and buy some tablecloths. For more affordable locally made linens, you can also visit the family-owned Tessitura Calabrese, located just south of Tricase.
Our next stop is the whitewashed port of Otranto, whose cathedral has a spectacular Renaissance rose window and 12th-century mosaic floor. There is a wonderful beach club at Lido la Castellana, owned by Salento-born Costume National co-founder Ennio Capasa and his sister Rita, where you can enjoy grilled fish at tables under umbrellas overlooking a small cove.
South of Otranto, we follow the beautiful if somewhat desolate road, which meanders a craggy coastline rimmed with wildflowers, drystone walls, ruined castles and the occasional agriturismo (farm stay). On a clear day, you can see the coast of Greece across the Adriatic – and you can even hear an ancient Greek dialect being spoken in some villages.
We pass the Moorish minarets and natural hot springs of Santa Cesarea Terme and head to Tricase Porto, with its rocky inlet that has been used as a harbour since the 1400s. In the town of Tricase itself, we relax over a couple of ‘Helen’s Hanky Panky’s’ at the improbably hip Farmacia Balboa, an old pharmacy now creating different kinds of painkillers with Salentino wines and farm-to-bar cocktails.
FOREIGNER STATE
Renowned local winemaker Francesco Winspeare (whose brother is the Italian filmmaker, Edoardo Winspeare) and US film director Taylor Hackford (who has a masseria down the road with his wife, Helen Mirren) are the owners. You can also arrange to visit Castel di Salve, Winspeare’s nearby winery, to taste some of Puglia’s esteemed indigenous grape varieties, such as negroamaro, primitivo, malvasia nera di Lecce and sweet aleatico.
Heading north on our mission to explore as much of Puglia as possible, we move our base to Masseria Trapanà, which sits to the north-west of Lecce – the beautiful university town and provincial capital of Salento.
Historically, the Pugliese found it impossible to protect their coastline from the waves of foreigners, which is why farmers constructed their fortresslike farmhouses in the hinterland. Today, ironically, one of the most beautiful of these masserie has been sensitively restored by a foreigner, the Australian hotelier Rob Potter-Sanders.
“It was the first masseria I visited, but when I saw there was a gum tree and a wattle in the courtyard and the fresco-adorned chapel honoured Saint Barbara (my mother’s name) I knew it was a sign,” laughs Potter-Sanders, who gives much of the credit to the master stonemasons who brought the vaulted 16th-century building back from the brink of destruction.
Now handcrafted four-poster beds and rustic local antique furniture adorn the eight suites and one room – most of which feature outdoor showers and baths, and, in a nice touch, Australian Aesop toiletries. A serene spa, blissfully cool during the summer months, has been fashioned out of the atmospheric underground olive oil mill as well.
“On a clear day, you can see the coast of Greece across the Adriatic.” The region of Puglia is about a five-hour drive south of Rome.
Six walled gardens contain hundreds of fruit trees, a games area for bocce and croquet, fire pit, yoga space and a serene pool, while the spacious living and dining area and open kitchen create a congenial house-party atmosphere, where you may encounter the likes of Collette Dinnegan and Hugh Jackman.
FEAST FOR THE SENSES
We drive 20 minutes into the city of Lecce. It is nicknamed the ‘Florence of the South’ because of its exquisite baroque architecture, fashioned by stonemasons out of the malleable blond pietra Leccese limestone.
We enjoy Lecce-style iced espresso with sweet almond milk and signature pasticciotti – shortcrust pastries filled with custard – at Doppiozero before exploring the historical centre. I marvel at the intricate detail of beasts cavorting around a rose window in the carved façade of the Basilica of Santa Croce, while the spectacular Piazza del Duomo is equally impressive with its soaring bell tower, bishop’s palace and Palazzo del Seminario.
Dinner is at Tormaresca Vino e Cucina, a relaxed bistro featuring local seafood and vegetables, such as mussel soup and caramelised prawns with fava beans and chicory, plus traditional Apulian bread. Owned by the Tuscan winemaking Antinori family, their nearby winery is part of the new wave of Apuglian winemakers, who are elevating the quality of the region’s indigenous grape varieties.
Heading north again the next day, we stop for lunch on PotterSanders’ recommendation at Masseria Melcarne, which is surrounded by an olive grove and organic farm. There we enjoy a classic Salento dish of pasta and chickpeas with cherry tomatoes before feasting on succulent meats that have been barbecued on salt racks.
Our final destination is the Itria Valley, which has Puglia’s highest concentration of whitewashed conical trulli houses – used for centuries for storage and temporary accommodation. The countryside is abloom with cherry blossoms and poppies, while newly ploughed red earth almost glows underneath the olive trees and grapevines.
While there are numerous trulli dotted across the farmland, like mushrooms after a storm, the UNESCO-listed hilltop village of Alberobello has an Instagram-worthy gaggle of 1,400 of them clustered along a labyrinth of narrow streets.
Though they may not all be trullifilled, a string of other whitewashed hill towns – including Locorotondo, Martina Franca and Ceglie Messapica (Al Fornello da Ricci is a good lunch spot) – crown the hills above the Itria Valley. Their narrow winding streets are well worth exploring for yet more baroque churches and palazzi.
FINAL FLAVOURS
As the sun is setting we explore the white-marble-clad Ostuni, the finest of all the white towns, which lords above the wide alluvial plain to the Adriatic Sea.
We dine at Osteria del Tempo Perso, a romantic, cave-like venue that was formerly a bakery, savouring Pugliese specialties such as capocollo (cured pork neck) from the town of Martina Franca and tagliatelle alle vongole with local baby clams.
We stay at the nearby familyowned Masseria Salinola, which has been an olive farm for hundreds of years. Its antique-filled rooms are located in a converted white stucco stable and an 18th-century former salt warehouse. There is also a courtyard framed with 1,000-year-old olive trees, a shady terrace overlooking a large pool and an enchanting dining room that is adorned with farm implements and traditional crockery.
At breakfast, we feast on fresh fruit and homemade jams from the orchard plus a delectable array of homemade Pugliese pastries.
Our final meal is at Da Tuccino overlooking the water not far from the old town of Polignano a Mare, which clings like a limpet to limestone cliffs and overlooks the white-pebble Lama Monachile Beach, framed by a Roman bridge from the ancient Via Traiana.
Here, we savour a selection of glistening fresh Pugliese raw fish dishes including the chef’s special tuna tartare and scorpion fish carpaccio followed by cuttlefish ink orecchiette with clams, red prawns and courgettes.
The waiter at Da Tuccino insists that we inspect the whole fresh fish before they are filleted and adds, with conviction, that their sashimi is better than the Japanese.
This self-belief and love of food permeates all of Puglia and can’t help but rub off on its visitors.
A love of food permeates all of Puglia.