A private chef dinner in Siena, in the house you rented
from€100 per person
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Sixteen years in the kitchens of this city
This is the one place where the professional history and the address are the same. Roberto was chef de partie at the Park Hotel, then sous chef acting as head chef at the five-star Grand Hotel Continental, and from August 2004 executive chef of both hotels at once, with two brigades to run in the same day. He was twenty-seven. Since 2005 he has taught professional cookery in Italian catering colleges, which is the other half of why the dinner works: a chef who teaches is used to explaining what he is putting in front of you.
Private chef near Florence, ItalyPrivate chef in Val d'OrciaPrivate chef in Chianti
The kind of house we cook in around Siena
South and east of the city, the stone farmhouses of the crete: thick walls, small windows, a kitchen built for feeding the people who worked the land, sometimes with a wood oven in the courtyard that has not been lit since the restoration. North towards Chianti the houses are larger and the kitchens newer. Inside the walls, narrow apartments with stairs instead of lifts, where the dinner works when we know before we load the van. None of them needs to be a professional kitchen; it needs to be a kitchen we have seen a photograph of. Which one you have varies by property and is confirmed before booking.
For a dinner rather than a class, one measurement matters more than the rest: the surface where four plates can go down at the same time. In these houses that is often the table in the middle of the kitchen rather than a counter, which is exactly why we ask for photographs: a kitchen that looks small in a picture is frequently fine, and one that looks generous can turn out to be a corridor with cupboards along it. The second measurement is the walk from the hob to where you will be sitting. Short, and a course arrives hot; long, and we plate closer to you and carry once.
What we cook when we cook in Siena
The menu is the one you chose, and Roberto picks the best and freshest ingredients for it. Around Siena that can mean pici, the flour-and-water pasta of this province, rolled by hand one strand at a time; Cinta Senese pork, a breed brought back from near extinction; pecorino from the valley south of the city; and beef cheek for a guancia di vitellone brasata al Chianti, cooked for hours. These are dishes a Sienese kitchen has cooked for a long time. Availability is confirmed through the actual shopping rather than promised in advance.
Three addresses, which is not the same thing as three suppliers. Macelleria Turchi in Via Montanini has been a family of Sienese butchers since 1967 and sells Chianina alongside the local salumi and pecorini. Il Magnifico, in Via dei Pellegrini, is a bakery for the Sienese sweets rather than a shop that sells them: panforte, ricciarelli and cavallucci made where they are eaten. And the Cinta Senese pig has had a consortium since 2000 and a European protected designation since 2012, which is the reason anyone can tell you what breed is on the plate.
What people wrote after the dinner
These come from the Google listing. It does not record which house a review was written in, so we do not sort them by area and we do not claim they were left here.
★★★★★Rebecca Tefera · September 2026 · on Google
The most delicious meal I’ve ever had, best meal in Italy.
★★★★★Danelle pepe · September 2026 · on Google
Please know this was the best meal I had traveling through Italy . I wish I could take this chef along with me and my family to cook every night. Simply the best of the best
★★★★★Joe P · September 2026 · on Google
Phenomenal. Totally blown away by the quality, presentation, and service of the meal. Hired for very intimate family dinner. Everyone was so pleased. Absolutely satisfied.
The questions we get about dinners in Siena
Can you serve dinner in an apartment inside the walls?
Do you cost more because you are based in Siena?
Is the Palio going to get in the way of our dinner?
What a dinner costs in Siena
Travel is included within 1.5 hours of Siena and calculated from the exact address under the published travel rule. Prices are per person with the total alongside: choosing the menu with you, the cooking, the service and the kitchen left clean. Roberto does the shopping for you: the groceries are paid separately on the day of the dinner, at cost (usually from about €50 in total).
La Tavola Toscana | from€100 per person |
La Cena di Roberto | from€115 per person |
Toscana d'Autore | from€130 per person |
Book a dinner in Siena
Prefer a class? Cooking classes in Siena
