Restaurant · Puglia · Italy

Torre d’Angelucco

Torre d’Angelucco is a restaurant in the Taranto province of Puglia, taking its name from a historic tower — “Angelucco’s tower” — that speaks to the defensive and signalling architecture that once dotted the coastline and countryside of this ancient southern Italian region.

At a glance

Type: Restaurant
Cuisine: Traditional Pugliese / Tarantino
Location: Taranto province, Puglia, Italy
Coordinates: 40.7030° N, 17.3369° E

Overview

Torre d’Angelucco takes its name from one of the many medieval and early-modern watchtowers that were built along the Pugliese coast and countryside to warn against Saracen raids and other threats from the sea. The Taranto area, where the restaurant is situated, is one of southern Italy’s most historically significant zones, home to one of Magna Graecia’s greatest cities and rich in archaeological and culinary heritage. The restaurant name invokes this landscape of towers, trulli, and ancient olive groves.

History

Taranto — ancient Taras — was founded by Spartan colonists around 706 BC and became the largest and most powerful city of Magna Graecia. The territory was subsequently ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Lombards, Normans, and Aragonese, each leaving layers of cultural and culinary influence. The network of defensive towers built from the 15th century onward by the Kingdom of Naples — the “torri costiere” system — protected coastal communities and gave their names to farms, estates, and localities that persist to the present day. A restaurant named after such a tower places itself in this long continuum of territorial identity.

What you see

The Taranto area cuisine draws from both land and two seas — the Mar Grande (Ionian Sea) and the Mar Piccolo (the inner lagoon), source of the celebrated cozze tarantine (Taranto mussels) that have been farmed in these waters since antiquity. Land-based dishes include orecchiette, lampascioni (wild hyacinth bulbs), and braised meats slow-cooked in the manner of the inland masserie. The landscape surrounding Taranto offers olive groves of extraordinary antiquity, baroque towns of the Valle d’Itria and the Murge plateau, and the spectacular Gravine canyons.

Cultural significance

Taranto occupies a unique position in Italian cultural history as the capital of Magna Graecia and home to one of the world’s finest collections of ancient Greek gold jewellery, housed in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto (MArTA). Restaurants in the province serve as entry points into a food culture shaped by three millennia of Mediterranean exchange, making dining here an act with genuine historical depth.

Practical information

Address: Taranto province, Puglia, Italy (exact address: check official website)
Hours: Check official website for current opening hours
Reservations: Recommended, especially in summer

Getting there

Taranto is accessible by train from Bari (approximately 1.5 hours), Brindisi, and Lecce on the main Puglia rail network. The nearest airport is Brindisi (BDS); Bari Karol Wojtyla Airport (BRI) is also within reach. By car, the SS7 (Via Appia) and the A14 motorway connect Taranto with the rest of Puglia and the Italian mainland. Local bus services connect the city with surrounding towns and countryside.

Sources & resources

Find it on the map

Google Maps See the location on a full map → Street View Walk around the place virtually → OpenStreetMap Free community cartography →

In the heart of Martina Franca, in Via Mercadante, in front of the tower of the same name, the Torre di Angelucco restaurant was born in the spring of 2013, which managed to quickly become a landmark in Martina and the surrounding area, for lovers of tasty and refined cuisine at the same time. The soul of the restaurant is chef Angela Pagano, passionate about cooking since she was a child, who, after numerous courses and important experiences, always keeping in mind the secrets learned from her mother, with whom she took her first steps in the kitchen, decided to start this new adventure in the town of the Itria Valley.



At Torre di Angelucco, Angela managed to harmoniously blend her favorite &quot;ingredients&quot;: the quality and freshness of the raw materials, all in season, the simplicity of the recipes of the Apulian tradition and a constant attention to detail, innovation and customer pleasure. Ingredients all present in the two menus, sea and land, which you can enjoy every day on the Torre di Angelucco table. To accompany Angela on her &quot;mission&quot;, always ready to recommend the right wine to pair with the dishes served, is Alessandro Ancona, expert and lover of wines, as well as his life partner. Entering Torre di Angelucco, surrounded by the living stone of the walls, the refinement of the furnishings, and the soft music that spreads in the room, you can breathe a familiar and welcoming atmosphere: it is as if Angela and Alessandro, at lunch and dinner, opened the doors of their home to accompany visitors on a gastronomic journey made of love for good food.



A love that is reflected in the dishes that Angela prepares, in a combination of flavors and colors difficult to forget. Angela herself is often present in the dining room, together with Alessandro, to explain the dishes served and to exchange a few words with the customers.


Participant in the 1st Edition of 2015 of the transmission 4Ristoranti by Alessandro Borghese in the fourth episode.

The Best Family-run Restaurant: The taste has a name &quot;Anthony Marra&quot; the restaurant, Torre d&rsquo;angelucco, La locanda del fu Giovanni, The pharmacy of the healthy. The pharmacy of the healthy wins.



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Program conducted with the usual sympathy by chef Alessandro Borghese, ready to accompany us, with his long experience in the field of catering, in a hunt for the culinary treasures of the peninsula that intrigues Italian viewers more and more.

https://culturalheritageonline.com/places/torre-daeangelucco-restaurant-l2500/

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Torre dâ€™Angelucco Restaurant