Siena Restaurants

Very nice and small restaurant (only 30 persons at the time) in the heart of Siena. The room is very clean and beautiful because it looks like you're eating in a cave. Waiters are very friendly and efficient.
NB: closed on Monday.

***Last time I ate there: 03/2007***
***Number of times I ate there: 1***

Favorite Dish: The meat is really very good and tasteful and served with excellent vegetables. Of course, if you're very hungry, you should try the Fiorentina (a very big piece of meat). To finish your meal, you can choose between several homemade desserts. A very good one is "Vino santo e cantucci", a kind of sweet wine with typical hard biscuits that you have to put in your glass before you eat them.
Also, a good selection of local wines.

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Gelateria La Costarella Caffe is located just off Piazza del Campo, and is a busy little place. A great place for a quick coffee, gelato or snack, and if you eat in, see if you can nab one of the little seats out on the tiny terrace that looks over the magnificent piazza - this is one of the special places in Siena!

On our last visit to Siena (Sep 2007) we spent some time sitting on the terrace enjoying the views over the square.

Favorite Dish: On our first visit to Siena we stopped into Gelateria La Costarella Caffe and bought some tasty gelato, which we ate on the mini terrace. Second time round we stopped in for a quick 'pick me up' coffee, eyeing out the gelato for a later date.

The café caters for tourists, with friendly enough English speaking staff, and there is also a toilet if you can be bothered queuing.

On our second visit to Siena we needed an afternoon sweet treat and decided to try the gelato from Gelateria Brivido, which is located close to Piazza del Campo.

It is just across the road from Gelateria La Costarella Caffe, and I have since found out that both places are owned by the same people - they are certainly on a good thing, both shops are in the perfect tourist catching location.

Favorite Dish: Gelateria Brivido specialises in not just ordinary ice cream, but also sherbets and granita - fruity, icy style ice cream. Always boringly predictable, we stuck to the creamy variety - a couple of scoops each of coffee & hazelnut flavours gave us the sugar hit we were after.

THIS IS A VERY EXCLUSIVE RESTAURANT LOCATED BETWEEN PIAZZA DEL CAMPO AND THE DUOMO. THE BUILDING WHICH HOSTS THE RESTAURANT IS FROM THE 12TH CENTURY.

Favorite Dish: BEST COURSES ARE THE ANTIPASTO AL MARSILI, WHICH IS A HUGE STARTED COMPOSED OF SFOGLIATINA CALDA AFFUMICATA, SALAD OF SIENA GOAT CHEESE, CROSTINI NERI AND BRUSCHETTA.

ALSO, AMONG THE PASTAS, DON'T MISS THE TORTELLONI WITH RUCOLA AND PINENUTS, PICI WITH PORCINI MUSHROOMS AND MANY MANY MORE.

We returned to Siena in June 2010 just for the day, and after lunch needed the fix I usually need at least once a day whilst in Italy - some gelato.

I had read good things about Gelateria Kopa Kabana, and we conveniently stumbled across the outlet on Via San Pietro whilst wandering around aimlessly with a sleeping baby.

Favorite Dish: The gelato was excellent - the super creamy and chocolatey chocolate certainly put a smile on my face and made it to the Top 3 gelato's for the trip.

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Researching prior to our visit to Siena in Sep 2007, I put together a list of a few good sounding places to have lunch. After checking them out we were either not impressed with the menu, or there was no room for the 4 of us. So I turned to our trusty guidebook and spotted Hosteria Il Carroccio.

First impressions were good, and we managed to nab the last free table. Phew. Service was friendly and the house wine went down just fine.

Favorite Dish: To start, we ordered a couple of things to share - the Antipasto Toscano and the Parmesan Soufflé with walnuts & honey. The soufflé was absolutely delicious! One of the tastiest things we ate on our trip. We all had pasta for main course - the Tagliatelle with wild boar sauce was the standout.

A great, relaxed place for lunch.

**** Ate here again in June 2010. Food was still tasty ****

I won’t even try to disguise this as “go and eat” because it is simply not possible to go there, enter and eat. I am referring to the host lady where I stayed during my two weeks in Siena: Orietta. Dante School has arranged my stay because I wanted to stay with a family rather than in an anonymous students’ apartment. Oh what a heavenly decision. Orietta is not only one of the sweetest Senese people I met, she is also a divine cook. Although I had collected several restaurants from @Tijavi’s Siena page in my trip planner before I left, already after my first evening meal it was clear to me that I will never go out and dine anywhere else in town. Every evening she prepared something different but always first and second course. It was almost like learning to cook “Italian”, especially the way she makes pasta, homemade pasta. In contrast to the majority of pasta dishes I had outside of Italy, she doesn’t drown the pasta in a sauce but prepares an amount which just barely surrounds each piece of pasta. This makes all, pasta, the ingredients of the sauce and the combination taste as they should. With this I also learned that not every pasta shape goes well with every pasta sauce (or sugo as it would be correct in Italian) but that there are different sugi for different shapes. The same goes for parmeggiano: not each sauce requires it and it is also not customs to bury a pasta dish under tons of parmeggiano. Orietta’s second dish was always a specific kind of meat, either chicken or pork or beef and once also a pigeon, although the latter wasn’t my kind of thing. Her preparations were always in Toscana style, the tagliata for example, which is roasted beef as a whole and then cut into thin pieces (tagilare = to cut). This is being put onto a bed of rocket and served with olive oil and aceto balsamico. Oh yes, olive oil.... I had the chance to taste the fresh produced olive oil, since it was November and furthermore she got the oil from friends of friends, just the “Italian way”. That’s the best anyhow, the oil which won’t ever be sold in a shop!

Ok, to make the long story short: try and find either an agriturismo where the old ladies cook meals or try to find a place where only the locals go, which is being passed over by word of mouth.

And thank you Orietta for having made my stay so extra special. Yes, I dearly miss you and I dearly miss your meals!

© Ingrid D., November 2010.

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I guess you always feel like you're taking a bit of a chance when you pick a restaurant located in a popular touristic area, but all in all I enjoyed stopping for lunch at Spadaforte. The location and view can't be beat: located at one of the corners of the Piazza del Campo, this restaurant's sidewalk terrace offers great views of the Palazzo Publico without being too crowded over by passersby. Service was quick and efficient, and my asparagus chicken dish was simple but nice and fresh, quite possibly the best non-pizza/pasta meal I had in Italy. If you add a delicious glass of prosecco to the equation, I'd say Spadaforte is a pretty good - and not too expensive - option in the Piazza del Campo area!