There’s so much truth enclosed in Ceglie

The craveable and welcoming side of Ceglie can have many smiling faces, starting with those of the Ricci sisters in Montevicoli. When she’s not teaching music, Rossella divides herself between the dining room and the cellar of Fornello while we can find Antonella in the kitchen with her husband Vinod Sookar, whom she met in Mauritius, then invited to Apulia and then never let go.

Then there’s the smile of Pamela Filomeno, owner of a lovely B&B, namely Sant’Anna, since three years ago, where in the warmer months it is possible to have breakfast on the roof (see photo above) and be more and more certain that Apulia is unique. You enter a cafe and are greeted with a “Hallo mister, what do you want?” And it’s not lack of respect, it’s just that there is no formality, especially the fake one.

Let’s keep the smile of Sante Barletta closed to us too. They call him Santino because he’s 2 metres tall, two centimetres more and he’d hit the door of the small kitchen, the kingdom of his mother Pompea, 75 and still full of the desire to cook traditional food. They own Osteria del Capitolo, once a cellar serving wine by the jug, today a straightforward and tasty little place. Beware: Santino is the king of horse or beef chops. Don’t expect a steak, but rolls cooked in tomato sauce.

Just like Osteria del Capitolo, two more locations not to be forgotten are in the historic centre, starting with Botrus, on the old town’s belvedere, created by Francesco Nacci and Evelyn Fanelli, a strong and sincere passion and a past lived as a source of energy thanks to which they project themselves into the future. Next to the Med Cooking School there’s Cibus, a restaurant opened twenty years ago by Lillino Silibello who loves to spread the culture behind products. The room in which he matures his cheese is his pride.

In the same neighbourhood as Fornello da Ricci, namely Montevicoli, there’s restaurant Da Gino. Husband and wife opened it forty years ago, in 1974, and still believe in the project and in the strength of rare flavours, rare in the sense of an authentic knowledge of wild and aromatic herbs. Never banal, in other words. Finally, there’s Antimo in Casina Terramora, an establishment in the middle of the countryside created by Antimo Savese and his wife Chiara amidst oak and olive trees, green vegetation, rooms and kitchen. An escape far away from everything where to pamper oneself.

In this journey across the delicacies of Ceglie, it’s time to look for some good bread. The best oven, and a wood one too, is probably that of Grazia Gigliola in Via Ricasoli, tel. +39.0831.388380. It’s the kind of place you’d only find in the South. The unhinged wood door, the stone floor, half of the counter and the oven in view, behind, with giant baking tins in which the bread just taken out of the oven can rest, the olive oil tarallini, with no match as for crispiness. Marvellous. However, Salvatore Convertino at Forno Urso doesn’t joke either (they’ve been bakers for a few generations now, good to know) +39.0831.379812, and the same goes for Cosimo Urso in Via Porta di Giuso, +39.0831.376991. On the shop sign of the latter there’s written Da Sisina, it is another wood oven in which almond shells are burnt too.

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