Osteria del Tempo Perso ★

A fabulous restaurant in Ostuni, Apulia

Osteria del Tempo Perso.

This restaurant has a split décor personality. The back dining room is a low-ceilinged cave carved out of the bedrock of Ostuni's hilltop nearly 500 years ago and softly lit by scones and the candles set on the patterned tablecloths alongside hand-painted plates from the Apulian ceramics capital, Grottaglie. A colorful cornucopia of fruits and vegetables surrounds the central column in stacks and baskets, and the chef occasionally scurries out of the kitchen to select a few for his recipes.

The high-ceilinged front dining room, on the other hand, is an archetype of the rustic trattoria: framed watercolors of Ostuni scenes and portraits share wall space with dozens of strange, often homemade farm implements and tools—there's even an antique bicycle hanging in an alcove.

In one corner of the room, under pendulums of cured meats and cheeses hanging from the edge of a wooden shelf and garlands of garlic and hot red peppers nailed to the walls, a long table groans under the weight of more stacked veggies and dozens of antipasto delicacies.

As soon as you sit down, before you can even open your mouth to ask for a menu, tiny plates start arriving laden with those antipasti: stuffed mushroom caps and frittatta wedges, falafel and steamed tripe, roasted vegetables in olive oil and cheeses stuffed with other cheeses.

Once you do get your hands on a menu, try Apulia's thick, Frisbee-shaped orecchiette ("little ears") pasta under a tomato sauce speckled with salty sharp cacioricotta cheese, or topped with bitter turnip greens kissed with spicy pepperoncini. Also on the menu are maccheroni and fave e cicorelle selvatiche (fava bean puree with wild chicory) and tegamino di funghi cardoncelli (a mushroom stew backed under a puffy cap of bread).

If there's still room, plump for the arrosto misto—a platter piled with roast sausage, lamb, and liver—with some pureed fava beans and wild chicory on the side. If not, there's always a spigola (sea bass) cooked in parchment with clams, or coniglio al forno (oven-roasted rabbit), or a simple stewed braciola al sugo con polpette.