About Primo
Primo sits in the historic centre of Lecce — a city whose golden Baroque architecture is arguably the most spectacular in southern Italy — and the restaurant matches its surroundings with cooking of equal refinement. Chef Solaika Marrocco, one of Italy's most acclaimed young chefs, holds a Michelin star for her intelligent reinterpretation of the culinary traditions of Salento: the heel of Italy's boot, where Greek, Norman, and Arab influences have layered over millennia to produce a cuisine unlike anything in the north.
Marrocco's menus are built on the specific agricultural identity of Salento: cicorie selvatiche (wild chicory), fave e cicoria (the fava bean and chicory combination that defines Puglian peasant cooking), sea urchin from the Adriatic coast, orecchiette with wild turnip tops, the dried figs and almonds of the Salento interior. The technique is contemporary — precise, clean, visually considered — but the ingredients and flavour references are unambiguously local.
The room at Primo occupies a converted palazzo space in Lecce, with the characteristic golden pietra leccese stone visible in the walls and the arched ceilings of the historic structure providing the room with a natural elegance that no interior designer could improve. The terrace in warm months is one of the most beautiful outdoor dining spaces in Puglia.
Primo is the essential restaurant for anyone visiting Lecce or travelling through the Salento peninsula — a kitchen that gives the region's remarkable culinary heritage the serious treatment it deserves, in a room that places that heritage in its proper historical context.
Best Occasion Fit
For solo dining, Primo's chef's counter provides direct access to Marrocco's kitchen and the opportunity to watch one of Italy's most talented young chefs at work. For first dates in Lecce, the combination of Baroque architecture and Michelin-starred cooking creates an evening that presents the most beautiful city in southern Italy at its finest.