La Perla
££££│ Pizza, Eat in or Takeaway
Evenings │Directions & Opening Times on Google
On walking into La Perla for the first time we milled around in the bar for a few seconds before catching the eye of one of the waiters. This chap, no-word-of-a-lie, promptly made this gesture at us 🤌, before holding up two fingers (thankfully indicating the number two) and pointing at a table. Talk about efficient hosting. We were already loling before we sat down.
La Perla is like a microcosm of everything that is fantastic and problematic about Italy all in one place. If you want to have a real traditional Leccese pizza experience I wholeheartedly recommend dropping by. It’s amazing, and in its own way, very unique.
Where to start. Firstly, you can't miss the place. It's got a bright red neon sign outside. This then opens onto a spacious, largely disused mid-century teak bar (complete with Madonna in her pride of place and a random collection of Guardia di Finanzia Calenders). This then in turn opens out onto an apricot orange dining room via a couple of internal brick arches. This high-ceilinged luminous-arancione food hall is neatly laid out with wooden two and four tops all of which are adorned with pink tablecloths. Meanwhile, the walls are decorated with just the most absolutely random shit. Beyond throwing up another random picture I swear the place hasn't been touched since whenever it was built, which was easily long enough ago that they could have inspired some filming locations for The Godfather.
There's no gainful employment for anyone under the age of forty in this place (like I said, a microcosm for Italy). And let's just say the dining crowd weren't chewing over the latest grime hits either. In fact, we were fairly sure everyone in there knew each other, like one big family...they go there for a pizza the same night every week. And they were all partaking together in the historic dining culture that has unpinned the healthy lifestyle of the Salentini community for generations. I’m talking plenty of plates of overcooked rape (local bitter green veg) and almost every table in there were chomping through great hunks of fresh watermelon after finishing their mains. Literally like going to eat at the in-laws.
The pizza is properly old-school rolling-pin disc pizza, with loads of tomato, the right amount of mozzarella, and oregano rather than basil on the Margherita. An itemised bill wasn't provided so I've no idea what was what, but we had two Margheritas and a half bottle of wine and they took us for €19... which is pretty fair game in my book. I should say that this included 3 cover charges rather than two (we had a child in a high chair with us). Given nothing was itemised we wouldn’t have even noticed this except the waiter apologised for it. Reading between the lines of this my guess is he had some tight-fisted owner breathing down his neck (taking ruthless pride in not letting the clients get a cent more than they deserve) and he wanted us to know this attitude was nothing to do with him. Christ can you imagine working there. Like I said, all the good and bad of Italy all in one place.
There are plates of pasta too which we didn’t try, plus local wine (not really the artisanal kind) and euro lager.
If you can understand that Michelin Star cheffery, soho food fashion, and dick-swinging/salt-slinging tweezer-led plates were, until fairly recently, total alien in this part of the world, then you’ll have no probs enjoying yourself in La Perla. But if you’re after a rehydrated fermented sous vide dinner I’d probs head somewhere else. Either way, La Perla will still be there, doing what they do, full of locals enjoying a simple and very pleasurable evening out.