Puglia’s New Pasta Masters — Chefs Who Turn Wheat into Art

Where Wheat Meets Imagination

In Puglia, pasta isn’t something you simply eat — it’s something you inherit.
From Bari’s back-alleys, where women still roll orecchiette by hand, to the sleek dining rooms of Michelin-starred restaurants, this sun-drenched region has turned flour and water into a language.

Yet in the past decade, something extraordinary has happened.
A new generation of chefs has taken Puglia’s most humble treasure — la pasta povera — and elevated it into contemporary expression. They haven’t abandoned tradition; they’ve stretched it, seasoned it, plated it anew.

These are the Pasta Masters of modern Puglia — artisans who still respect the semolina, the bronze dies, the cime di rapa — but dare to tell new stories through them.

Angelo Sabatelli — The Sage of Monopoli

In a quiet corner of Monopoli, Angelo Sabatelli built a temple to the humble.
After years cooking in Jakarta, Shanghai, and Mauritius, he returned home with a single conviction: Puglia could stand proudly on the global stage — not by imitation, but by authenticity refined.

At Ristorante Angelo Sabatelli, his pasta is philosophy.
The orecchiette are bronzed to perfection, paired with a 30-hour ragù and an aerated Canestrato-cheese fondue.
He’ll balance chickpea purée with scampi, or layer burnt-grain tagliolini with local vegetables as if composing poetry in texture.

Sabatelli’s genius lies in restraint: he never hides behind foam or fuss.
He lets wheat and land speak — in dialect, perhaps — but with impeccable diction.

“I don’t reinvent Puglia,” he once said. “I rediscover it.”

Maria Cicorella — The Matriarch of Conversano

At the historic Pashà Ristorante in Conversano, Maria Cicorella has long been the soul of Puglian fine dining.
A former home cook turned Michelin-starred chef, she represents the bridge between nonna’s wooden table and haute cuisine’s white linen.

Her signature? Orecchiette di Conversano — larger, thicker, made with a deliberate thumb-drag that traps sauce like a small bowl.
She serves them with turnip greens and anchovy oil, or folds them into refined compositions with bottarga and lemon zest.

But the heart of her cooking remains the same: respect.
“Pasta,” she says, “is memory. And every plate remembers the hands that shaped it.”

When she left her Michelin star to open Evviva Maria, a more casual trattoria in Bari, critics gasped. But it made sense — her mission was to bring true, local pasta back to ordinary tables.

Cicorella is proof that greatness often begins with simplicity — and that the real revolution is to remain humble.

Floriano Pellegrino & Isabella Potì — The Rebels of Lecce

In Lecce, the couple behind Bros’ Restaurant — Floriano Pellegrino and Isabella Potì — are rewriting what it means to cook in the South.
They are young, fierce, occasionally controversial — and utterly committed to Salento’s identity.

Their menu reads like a manifesto: handmade pasta sheets tinted with squid ink; troccoli with smoked lemon and seaweed; ravioli filled with fermented cime di rapa.
Each plate balances between ancient instinct and modern experiment.

At Bros’, pasta is both food and performance.
They treat each dish as a narrative: the sea meeting the field, the past colliding with the avant-garde.

Some call them radicals; others, poets.
Either way, their work has made Lecce one of Italy’s most discussed culinary destinations — a place where you can literally taste the future of pasta.

Felice Sgarra — The Romantic of Trani

Travel north to the port town of Trani, and you’ll find Casa Sgarra, a family-run restaurant helmed by Felice Sgarra.
If Pellegrino and Potì are the rebels, Sgarra is the romantic.
His food whispers rather than shouts — refined, warm, and deeply emotional.

His handmade spaghetti alla chitarra with sea urchin and lemon air is as delicate as poetry.
He often works with ancient grains and forgotten vegetables, reinterpreting cucina povera into something ethereal.
For him, pasta isn’t a vehicle for sauce; it’s a living thing that carries the sea breeze on its surface.

Sgarra, like his brothers who run the dining room, believes that hospitality is memory.
And every forkful of his pasta feels like an embrace from the Adriatic itself.

Domenico Cilenti — The Storyteller of Gargano

At Porto di Basso in Peschici, perched above the Gargano cliffs, Domenico Cilenti cooks as if composing a love letter between land and sea.
His kitchen is small, his view infinite — and so are his ideas.

Cilenti’s pasta might combine monkfish ragù with foraged herbs, or black-truffle-scented tagliolini with seaweed powder.
He insists that his pastas must “taste like the place you’re looking at from the window.”

It’s this geographical honesty that defines his cuisine.
Every dish speaks of Gargano’s dual identity: fisherman’s humility and mountain soul.
Few chefs manage to balance that tension with such quiet grace.

Threads That Bind Them

Though each of these chefs tells a different story, their voices harmonize into one movement — the Puglian Pasta Renaissance.

Local grain, global vision: All of them insist on Puglian wheat — often from specific mills or biodynamic farms — but use techniques learned worldwide.
Shape as heritage: Whether orecchiette, troccoli, or burnt-grain tagliolini, each shape is treated as a word in a larger poem.
Innovation without arrogance: There’s experimentation, yes, but never ego. These chefs innovate from tradition, not against it.
Respect for simplicity: They still honour the cucina povera roots — humble ingredients elevated through precision and love.
Community and mentorship: From Cicorella’s teaching kitchens to Pellegrino’s Bros’ Academy, they see pasta as a cultural duty, not just a dish.

A Living Tradition

Watch the hands of a woman shaping orecchiette in Bari Vecchia, and you’ll see the same rhythm that guides these Michelin kitchens.
The scale has changed, but the spirit hasn’t.

Puglia’s pasta today is alive in every form:
on porcelain plates in Monopoli, on wooden boards in Conversano, in the surf-salt air of Trani, and under the harsh kitchen lights of Lecce.
Every chef adds a verse to the song — but the refrain is still wheat, water, and love.

And that’s the miracle of Puglia: no matter how far you refine it, the pasta always tastes like home.

The Next Chapter

Younger chefs are already training under these masters, mixing sustainability with storytelling.
New pasta ateliers are opening across the region — small laboratories making grano arso tagliolini, lentil-flour fusilli, and heritage-grain orecchiette for chefs and locals alike.

But the truth is: the next chapter is already being written — on the plates of these five visionaries.

When you sit at their tables, you’re not just tasting Puglia’s past.
You’re witnessing its future — hand-rolled, bronze-cut, and served with unshakable pride