Osteria La Chiacchera: a proper welcome, and every price in public

Forty covers on a steep lane below San Domenico. We have eaten here many times, and the thing you remember afterwards is not the bill — it is the way you are received. The bill is worth talking about too.

Costa di Sant'Antonio is one of those Sienese streets that exists mainly to get you down a hill. It drops away from Via della Sapienza toward Fontebranda, past the Santuario di Santa Caterina, and if you are walking it you are almost certainly on your way somewhere else. At number 4 there is a door, a few tables set out on the slope, and a room behind them furnished in wood and the plain arte povera style that Tuscan trattorie have used for a century because it works.

A chiacchiera is a chat — the unhurried, sitting-down kind. In the plural it turns into something else entirely: chiacchiere are the blistered ribbons of fried pastry Italy eats at Carnival, though in Tuscany you would ask for cenci and get the same thing. The osteria drops an i from the word on its sign. Either way the name is a promise about the room rather than the food, and the room keeps it.

The welcome is the reason to go

A confession first. We were not sure we wanted to write this one at all — there is a small, ungenerous part of every regular that would rather a favourite stayed a favourite. We are including it because a place run this well has earned the readers. But consider it handed over quietly. Keep it to yourself.

We have eaten here many times, in and out of season, and it is the same every time: you are met like someone expected rather than someone processed. The room seats forty. Nobody is hurrying you out for the second sitting, nobody is performing hospitality at you, and by the second course the distinction between eating in a restaurant and eating in somebody's house has quietly stopped applying.

That is not an accident and it is not a marketing position. The people running this place are decent, genuine and visibly hard-working, and it shows in the small things — the advice on what to drink with what, the willingness to explain a dish rather than just deliver it, the fact that the same faces are there year after year. Siena has grander dining rooms and it has more fashionable ones. It does not have many where you would rather bring somebody you actually like.

The cooking holds up its end. This is Tuscan food done properly rather than cleverly: the pasta has the right texture, the beans taste of beans, the braises have had the time they need. Nothing on the plate is trying to impress you, which is precisely why it does.

More range than its reputation suggests

La Chiacchera has spent years being written about as the good-value one — honest Sienese home cooking, a small room, a fair bill. All of that is true, and on its own it undersells the kitchen.

The same menu carries Chianina IGP tartare at €16 to €17 and marinated Chianina carpaccio from €14; three grades of fiorentina sold by the etto with a one-kilo minimum — Limousine at €5, Scottona at €6, Chianina IGP at €7 — and tagliata up to €25. There are pizze al padellino, the pan-baked kind, from €10. And the daily sheet has been running something genuinely unusual for Siena: a line of cured fish charcuterie — tuna pancetta, swordfish speck, amberjack ham — as a €28 board, and a carbonara di mare that swaps the pork for cured tuna at €18.

You can eat here for about €25 a head, or you can eat here for three times that, and it is the same kitchen either way. The menù del giorno is where it is thinking hardest: pappardelle alla lepre at €15, pici al ragù antico at €13,50, venison fillet at €22, lamb scottadito at €20.

Which brings us to the only real difficulty this place presents. There is too much you want. You will sit with the menu, change your mind twice, ask what the daily sheet has and change it a third time, and still be undecided when the water arrives. Let it go — in all our meals here we have never once ordered badly. Point at something that catches you. It will be good.

Everything has a printed price

Something unglamorous deserves saying, because it is rarer in the Siena centro storico than it should be. The osteria publishes its full menu — not a photograph of a chalkboard, not "prices on request", but two PDFs on its own website, a standing menu and a menù del giorno, with a euro figure beside every line.

We have profiled restaurants in this city that publish no menu at all, and others whose own website cannot be read. Being able to know what dinner costs before you sit down is, in practice, the single most useful thing a restaurant can tell a visitor — and the places that do it are almost always the ones with nothing to hide about it.

So: the coperto is €2. Pici cacio e pepe and pici all'aglione are both €13. Ribollita, served in its earthenware, €12; pappa al pomodoro €10. From the second courses, peposo €16, trippa €14, cinghiale in umido €16, ossobuco alla senese €18, salsicce di cinta senese with beans €16. Fagioli al fiasco — the beans cooked in a flask, which is a Sienese thing worth ordering once — are €6. A fettunta, which is to say good bread, good oil and garlic, is €4. Puddings are €6, or €7 for ricciarelli, panforte or cantuccini with a glass of vinsanto. The house red or white — Rosso o Bianco dell'Osteria — runs from €2,50 to €9,50 depending on how much of it you want. Coffee is €1,50.

What to order

If it is your first time and you want the Sienese canon, order the way the room was built for: fettunta or a tagliere to start, pici all'aglione — thick hand-rolled pasta, a slow sweet garlic and tomato sauce, and the dish Siena would choose to be judged on — then peposo or the salsicce di cinta senese with beans, and cantuccini with vinsanto. That is a complete Sienese dinner for roughly €35 before wine, in the historic centre, in August.

If you have eaten your way through the pici already, take the daily sheet instead and ask what came in. The hare and the game dishes are the ones that reward the trip. And do ask — the answer you get here is a real one.

Learn to make pici yourself

Booking, and getting there

Forty covers is a small room, and it is a five-minute walk from both San Domenico and the Santuario di Santa Caterina, which means it takes the overflow from two of the busiest points in the city. Book. The osteria takes reservations by telephone and through a form on its own site, and it also does takeaway and delivery if you have an apartment and a balcony worth eating on.

Coming on foot from the station side, or from a car park at the Fortezza Medicea or the stadium, the osteria's own directions are the good ones: walk to the Basilica di San Domenico, along Via della Sapienza, and after about 200 metres turn right and go downhill into Costa di Sant'Antonio. Number 4 is on your way down. If you are driving into Siena at all, read our guide to the ZTL first — the historic centre is closed to unauthorised traffic and the cameras are not decorative.

Practical information

Address: Costa di Sant'Antonio 4, 53100 Siena Telephone: +39 0577 280631 Email: osterialachiaccherasiena@gmail.com Hours: published as daily, 12:00–15:30 and 18:00–23:00. The osteria states no closing day anywhere on its own website — telephone before making a special journey, particularly in winter. Covers: 40 Coperto: €2,00 Good to know: the full menu and the daily menu are both published as PDFs on the osteria's own site — check them before you go, because they change. Takeaway and delivery available; the room also takes group lunches and private events. Prices checked: 31 July 2026, against the osteria's own published menus.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How much does dinner at Osteria La Chiacchera cost? The osteria publishes its full menu with prices on its own website. As checked on 31 July 2026, the coperto is €2, pici dishes are €13, ribollita is €12, and second courses such as peposo, trippa and cinghiale in umido run from €14 to €18. A full Sienese dinner comes to roughly €35 a head before wine. Steak sold by the etto and the Chianina dishes cost considerably more. Prices change — check the osteria's own menu before you go.

Where is Osteria La Chiacchera? Costa di Sant'Antonio 4, in Siena's historic centre, on the lane that drops downhill from Via della Sapienza toward Fontebranda. It is about five minutes on foot from the Basilica di San Domenico and from the Santuario di Santa Caterina.

When is Osteria La Chiacchera open? Its published hours are every day, 12:00–15:30 and 18:00–23:00. The osteria does not state a closing day anywhere on its own website, so telephone +39 0577 280631 before making a special journey, particularly outside the summer season.

Do you need to book? Yes, in season. The room seats about forty and it sits between two of the busiest points in the city. Book by telephone or through the form on the osteria's own site.

What should you order at Osteria La Chiacchera? For the Sienese canon: pici all'aglione, then peposo or salsicce di cinta senese with beans, and cantuccini with vinsanto. If you have eaten your way through the pici already, take the menù del giorno instead — the game dishes are where the kitchen is thinking.

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By the Siena & Toscana editors