Delia
Delia is about a 10-minute walk from Piazza Mazzini, the most fashionable part of Lecce, and it lives up to the area’s reputation with bang-on-trend pastel pink/teal interior, mid-century style chairs & lighting and decent-sized bright wood tables. So good a place is this to come with a laptop I am actually bashing this in on my keyboard now. Also, so hot a place is this to come for a coffee that I’ve already bumped into several people I know. Not that I’m the man about town who knows everyone (far from it) but you know what I mean.
They have a simple selection of elegant pasticceria, it’s not the place to come for an enormous cream-filled coda (crispy pastry tails), it’s more of a mini torta with meringue/perfectly glazed fruit/chocolate-ganache twirls type of place, as well as the usual breakfast selection, including Lecce’s famous pasticciotti, all of which is well made.
Settimo Cielo
Settimo Cielo is a pretty small and old school gelateria and there’s something about it that fondly reminds me of a sea side ice cream parlour of my childhood…not any place in particular but that kind of vibe. I love it. Ten out of ten for vibe. It just feels extremely unpretentious in a city full of quite ostentatious gelato joints (that often are perhaps a little too focused on looking good rather than tasting good).
And the gelato here tastes banging. In fact on my visit I was tasting Settimo Cielo head to head against another gelateria, and Settimo Cielo was noticeably better on both the flavours, which is quite rare (in the gelato tasting game, it can end up all tasting the same).
Cioccolati Gourmet
Cioccolati Gourmet has a BIG WALL OF CHOCOLATE. It’s massive. They’ve obviously been to see a Willy Wonka movie, and made some notes. Creamy liquid chocolate oozing down an entire wall. If you’re stood anywhere near the building you can’t possibly miss it. It’s like a statement of intent. And if you’re in the chocolate business, which evidently they are; it’s a pretty good statement to make.
Citiso
Pasticceria Citiso feels like the kind of place that Shoreditch graphic designers come to visit on research trips (and then recreate -badly- for buzz London restaurant companies looking for the edge in the world of restaurant fashion). Everything from the signage, to the fonts on the awnings and sugar packets is so on point that it really is an extremely entertaining place to sit and have a drink/something sweet. It has a creamy marble/mid century concrete look, with mirrors everywhere, tables laid up with actual table clothes (and glass tops); windows lined with rows of classic cakes, and Romanesque columns each side of the door as you walk in. Even if I’m sure essential refurbs will come along in the future, I hope that from a design perspective nothing about this place ever changes.