Le Zie – Cucina Casareccia

The people behind it

The trattoria's name comes from its history. According to Milk Street, the American cooking magazine that ran a piece by J.M. Hirsch in its November-December 2019 issue, the building was first a wine shop and then a restaurant run by three sisters: two of them had never married and were known around town as "the aunts", so that "let's go to the Aunts" became a common saying.

About twenty years before that article the place passed to Anna Carmela Perrone, who inherited it through a distant relative. In Milk Street's account, she is the one who makes the ciceri e tria according to her own method. The Touring Club Italiano describes the trattoria as a long-established place owned by two aunts; Storie Gastronomiche calls it the very definition of home-style Apulian cooking.

Sources: Milk Street — J.M. Hirsch, Puglian Pasta with Chickpeas, Lemon and Parsley (novembre-dicembre 2019) · Touring Club Italiano — Trattoria Cucina Casereccia Le Zie, Lecce · Storie Gastronomiche — Trattoria Le Zie a Lecce, la cucina casereccia pugliese per antonomasia (28 febbraio 2018)

What they make

The cooking is home-style Salento. The Touring Club Italiano lists among the dishes fava bean purée with chicory, taiedda, a bake of potatoes, courgettes and mussels, potatoes with cardoons, lasagna incannulata with little meatballs and horse meat stew in a spicy sauce, and notes the restaurant's own oils.

The dish that ties Le Zie to Lecce is ciceri e tria. The Touring describes it as pasta with chickpeas "browned and crisp, scented with black pepper". Milk Street explained the method: Anna Carmela Perrone boils half the pasta in salted water, so it stays tender, and fries the other half in olive oil until golden and crisp; she then brings the two together in a pan with the chickpeas and a little cooking water, making a thick sauce. In 2018 Storie Gastronomiche listed, alongside ciceri e tria, a vegetable ciambotto, a tiella of rice, potatoes and mussels, fried pittule and octopus cooked in a pignata.

Sources: Touring Club Italiano — Trattoria Cucina Casereccia Le Zie, Lecce · Milk Street — J.M. Hirsch, Puglian Pasta with Chickpeas, Lemon and Parsley (novembre-dicembre 2019) · Storie Gastronomiche — Trattoria Le Zie a Lecce, la cucina casereccia pugliese per antonomasia (28 febbraio 2018)

Ingredients and territory

The trattoria's ingredients are those of Salento's peasant cooking: dried pulses such as fava beans and chickpeas, wild greens such as chicory and cardoons, potatoes, mussels, octopus and horse meat. The Touring Club Italiano notes the restaurant's own oils, while in 2018 Storie Gastronomiche named Francesca Stajano as the producer of the oil used in the kitchen: a detail that matters in dishes where oil is the dressing and, in ciceri e tria, also the cooking medium for the fried part of the pasta.

The double cooking described by Milk Street is the technical heart of the dish: the boiled pasta gives softness and binds the sauce with its starch, while the pasta fried in olive oil adds crunch and a toasted flavour. Black pepper, mentioned by the Touring, finishes the dish. Fava beans with chicory, taiedda and horse meat stew belong to the same tradition and make the menu a map of Salento home cooking.

Sources: Touring Club Italiano — Trattoria Cucina Casereccia Le Zie, Lecce · Milk Street — J.M. Hirsch, Puglian Pasta with Chickpeas, Lemon and Parsley (novembre-dicembre 2019) · Storie Gastronomiche — Trattoria Le Zie a Lecce, la cucina casereccia pugliese per antonomasia (28 febbraio 2018)

Recognition

In Slow Food's Osterie d'Italia 2026 guide, Le Zie – Cucina Casareccia in Lecce is one of the twenty-five Apulian osterie awarded the Snail, the association's mark of excellence. According to Dissapore, which published the region-by-region list on 20 October 2025 in an article by Massimo De Marco, the Snail rewards research into local ingredients, starting with Slow Food Presidia, knowledge of local traditions and commitment to environmental, social and human sustainability; in 2026 there are 337 Snails across Italy.

The trattoria is also listed by the Touring Club Italiano in its guide to Lecce. The Slow Food guide page is not publicly available: the recognition is reported here through the Dissapore article.

Sources: Dissapore — Le migliori Osterie d'Italia 2026 secondo Slow Food, regione per regione (20 ottobre 2025) · Touring Club Italiano — Trattoria Cucina Casereccia Le Zie, Lecce

Going there

Le Zie is at via Colonnello Archimede Costadura 19, in Lecce's old town; the phone number given by the Touring Club Italiano is 0832 245178. To get in you ring the doorbell, as at a private home: Storie Gastronomiche stresses that entry is not free but requires ringing, "just as at a private home".

The Touring advises booking at weekends and in the warm season, and lists closures in the first week of January, the last week of August, the first week of September and the last week of December; there are 42 covers, so booking is useful at other times too. The trattoria fits a lunch or dinner within a day in Lecce's baroque centre, between Santa Croce, piazza Sant'Oronzo and the Cathedral, and a comparison between ciceri e tria and rustico leccese, the two faces of the city's cooking.

Sources: Touring Club Italiano — Trattoria Cucina Casereccia Le Zie, Lecce · Storie Gastronomiche — Trattoria Le Zie a Lecce, la cucina casereccia pugliese per antonomasia (28 febbraio 2018)

Products and flavours

Ciceri e tria (pasta with chickpeas)

PAT · Prepared dishes

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Ciceri e tria and rustico leccese

The chickpea pasta, part of it fried, of 19 March and the filled puff pastry born in 18th-century salons: history, technique, festivals and where to taste them in the Salento.

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Traditional Puglian dishes

Orecchiette, focaccia, panzerotti, tiella and Salento cooking: connecting dishes with places.

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Photo: Elfmir / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The place

Lecce

Baroque architecture, papier-mâché and Salento food: a city of telling details.

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Photo: Giuseppe Milo / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 3.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Puglia