Il Contadino

A farm with a restaurant

Il Contadino (“the farmer”) is a real agriturismo in Frassanito, in the countryside north of Otranto, 700 metres from the sea. It was started in 1987 by Bartolomeo Merico, who left a steady job to farm his grandparents' land, and today it is run by his children with their families. They themselves insist on the difference: it is not a restaurant with a vegetable garden, but a farm with a restaurant inside.

From the farm's fields come the bread, pasta, pizza, oil, wine, vegetables and preserves. The fish they choose each morning at Otranto harbour, when the boats come in, and the meat comes from local farmers they know.

There are three settings: an indoor room of Lecce stone with Salento lamps, the porch and an open-air garden. Red and white checked tablecloths.

What to order

All the pasta is made by hand every morning with their own durum wheat:

• To start: the Contadino antipasto (grilled vegetables, artichokes in oil, rustic pizza, parmigiana, courgette flan, fresh cheese and burratina, €15), the mixed fry of croquettes, meatballs and battered vegetables (€14), or a fish carpaccio (€25).
• Pasta: orecchiette with turnip tops, sagne with guanciale or with polpettone, ciceri e tria (pasta with chickpeas and fried pasta, a very Salento dish), spaghetti with seafood.
• Main courses: the grill (veal chop, sausage, bombette, which are little rolls of pork neck with cheese, and the mixed grill), oven-roast kid with potatoes (€24) or the fish of the day you choose from the display case.
• Pizza from a wood-fired oven, also in the evening.

They have vegetarian dishes and everything can be ordered gluten-free.

Hours, booking and getting there

It is open every day, at lunchtime and in the evening. On its website you book by sittings, from 12:30 to 13:30 and from 19:30 to 22:00, or by WhatsApp. It is on Via Azienda in Frassanito, 10 minutes from Otranto and half an hour from Lecce, with large free parking. The farm also has rooms, a pool, a winery, an oil mill and a shop.