Hot fish on the corner

 You have to push your way round the fish shop to get noticed, you sort out your own tablecloth and cutlery, and your meals all come at different times. But our local pescheria in Ostuni – where a cold beer and a barbequed octopus in a bun sets you back just 5.30 euros – is the kind of affordable seafood eatery every neighbourhood near the coast deserves, and so often doesn’t get. 

Octopus in a bun

Inside it’s fresh fish on ice for sale – bream, octopus, prawns, mussels, clams, tuna, swordfish  – and outside a tree-covered dining area crowded with plastic tables.

The dining-in feels secondary to the fresh fish business; front-of-house staff double between service and fishmongery, dressed in polo shirts, tracksuits and trainers/gumboots. Happy with that trade-off when it comes to eating quality fish.  It is a family operation: the patriarch watches over his children from a seat in the corner, but hastily jumps out of his seat when our renegade daughter is darting off towards the roadside.  If we're ever spotted in the jostle of ordering inside, the daughter who speaks a few words of English is usually shouldered our way for us to stumble out an order. We're then given a table number, paper tablecloth, stack of plastic cups and napkins to set up outside.  

This place booms in the summer weekends, and the freshly cooked meals can take 20 to 40 minutes to arrive.

 

If you're smart you start with an insalata di mare (6 euros) featuring baby octopus and julienned vegetables in a vinaigrette - usually served straight away.

Insalata di mare

Fried fish – mixed seafood, fried, or filleted and goujoned, battered and fried (fish and chips, 7 euros) landed on a lot of tables in aluminum baking trays.

A regional baked rice dish, taiedda, combining rice, potato slices, cherry tomatoes and a lot of mussels is tasty – in texture between a pilaf and a risotto and with a crusty top. 

Mussels, rice and potato

We’ve also bought fish fresh here and cooked pan-fried bream with capers and lemon, spaghetti alle vongole and spaghetti and prawns with the local purple-headed fresh prawn (made by our visiting friend Coutts).

Sea bream with capers and lemon

I used the spaghetti alle vongole recipe from the Word of Mouth blog on the Guardian website where different recipes are analysed for best approaches.

Mussels opening in garlic, olive oil and white wine

Spaghetti alle vongole

 We can smell when the fish shop's octopus on the charcoals is ready from our roof terrace, and are always tempted by the lemon and olive oil drizzled tentacles – often despite having just eaten. 

Pescheria Il Delfino Di Greco Felice & C. Sas

Corso Garibaldi, 1, 72017 Ostuni Brindisi, Italy  +39 0831 303037 ‎