What to Eat in Siena, From Pici to Panforte

Siena is known for pici, a thick hand-rolled pasta; Cinta Senese pork and cured meats; pecorino cheese from nearby Pienza; Tuscan bread soups like ribollita and pappa al pomodoro; and its sweets, above all panforte, ricciarelli almond cookies and cavallucci. The local wines are Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and the white Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Sienese cooking is country cooking with a sweet tooth. The pasta is rolled by hand, the bread is made without salt, the pork comes from a black-and-white breed that roams the oak woods, and the cakes still carry the spices that medieval merchants brought home along the pilgrim road. Here are the dishes to look for in Siena, and how to bring them back to your villa table.

What pasta is Siena known for?

If you eat one dish in Siena, make it pici: thick, chewy strands of pasta rolled by hand from flour and water, a little like fat spaghetti. Every family has its favorite sauce. Look for pici all’aglione, with a slow-cooked tomato sauce made with the mild giant garlic of the Val di Chiana; pici cacio e pepe, with pecorino and black pepper; pici alle briciole, tossed with toasted breadcrumbs and olive oil, a reminder of the thrifty farmhouse kitchen; and, in the fall, pici with wild boar ragù.

Which Tuscan soups should you try in Siena?

Tuscan bread is baked without salt, and nothing is wasted. Day-old bread becomes ribollita, a thick winter soup of beans, black kale and vegetables; pappa al pomodoro, a summer soup of ripe tomatoes, basil and good oil; and panzanella, a bread salad with tomatoes, cucumber and red onion that is perfect on a hot day by the pool. In the fall, look for fettunta: grilled bread rubbed with garlic and drenched in the new season’s olive oil.

What is Cinta Senese?

The Cinta Senese is an ancient breed of pig, black with a white band around its shoulders, that you can see in a 14th-century fresco in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico. Raised outdoors in the woods, it makes some of the finest cured meats in Italy: try the prosciutto, the finocchiona salami scented with wild fennel and the lardo sliced paper-thin on warm bread. On the grill, look for Cinta Senese pork chops and, in Chianti, the famous bistecca alla fiorentina, a thick T-bone cooked rare over wood embers.

Which cheese comes from near Siena?

Sheep graze the clay hills of the Crete Senesi and the Val d’Orcia, and their milk becomes pecorino, Tuscany’s great cheese. The town of Pienza is famous for it, and its main street smells of cheese shops. Try it young and soft with fresh fava beans in the spring, aged and nutty with honey and pears, or wrapped in walnut leaves or aged in ash. Pienza is an easy outing; see our day trips from Siena.

What are the traditional sweets of Siena?

Siena sat on the Via Francigena, the great pilgrim road to Rome, and its spice merchants grew rich. Their legacy is on every bakery shelf:

• Panforte: a dense, chewy cake of honey, almonds, candied fruit and spices, made in Siena since the Middle Ages. Panforte Margherita, dusted with powdered sugar, was named for Queen Margherita on a visit in the 1870s; the darker panpepato is the older, spicier version.
• Ricciarelli: soft, diamond-shaped almond cookies, crisp outside and tender inside, dusted with sugar.
• Cavallucci: chewy cookies with walnuts, anise and candied orange, traditionally made for the holidays.
• Pan co’ santi: a sweet bread with walnuts and raisins, baked around All Saints’ Day on November 1.

Pasticceria Nannini on the Banchi di Sopra is the classic place to try them all with an espresso, and the bakery Il Magnifico, a few steps from the cathedral, is known for its panforte. Both make wonderful gifts to take home.

What wine goes with Sienese food?

Siena is surrounded by great red wine: Chianti Classico to the north, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to the south, and the crisp white Vernaccia from San Gimignano to the west. End a meal with a glass of Vin Santo, the amber dessert wine, and dip a cantucci almond biscuit in it. Plan a tasting day with our guide to wine country near Siena.

Can you have a private chef or cooking class near Siena?

Some of the best meals of a Siena trip happen at home. Shop the Wednesday market near the Medici fortress or the village butchers and bakeries near your villa, then invite a local cook to teach the family how to roll pici. Most of our villas near Siena can arrange a private chef for a dinner under the pergola or a hands-on cooking class, and some, like Villa Amarika in Chianti and Villa Cardinale near Montalcino, produce their own wine or olive oil. Cooking with children? Read our guide to Italian cooking classes that work for families.

For restaurants we love in the area, see our Tuscany restaurant guide, and when you are ready to plan, talk to a Doorways advisor. Coming in the fall? Read the best time to visit Siena for harvest and truffle season.