Ristorante Il Tufo: the Campo's New All-Day Table

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The piazza's dining rooms rarely change hands, and rarer still does one open with ambition. Il Tufo — named for the earth the Palio is run on — arrived in May 2024 with a grill, a serious pizza dough and the terrace Siena's summer evenings were waiting for.

Addresses on Piazza del Campo pass quietly from one generation to the next; new ones are almost never made. So when the shutters came up at Il Campo 15 in May 2024 — some five hundred square metres over four levels, from an underground cellar to rooms looking onto the piazza — Siena noticed. The name is a statement of intent: tufo is the ochre volcanic earth spread over the Campo's paving each July and August to make the Palio's track, and a piece of it sits in a display case inside, a gift to the founding family. This is a restaurant that wants to belong to the piazza, not merely to trade on it.

Three Kitchens Under One Roof

Il Tufo is really three ideas run together, and it is open from breakfast until well past midnight, which on the Campo is its own kind of luxury. The grill leads: Chianina beef, bistecca alla fiorentina, fillets seared and served with copper pans of white beans, grilled vegetables and roast potatoes. The pizzeria takes itself equally seriously — a 70 per cent hydration dough built on three flours and baked twice, the house's stated formula for a base that stays light while holding its toppings upright. And the American bar runs the aperitivo hour, with cocktails and taglieri of Tuscan salumi and cheese from €8, poured as the evening light climbs the palazzi opposite.

The rooms below — the privé and the cellar — hold tastings of Tuscan labels, and the calendar leans social: the founders talk about the place as a meeting point rather than a dining room, and it was conceived to work in winter as well as high season. Giovanni Carli, who runs it, put it plainly at the opening: the aim is a hub, not simply a bar.

The Terrace, on the Right Nights

Every table on the Campo buys the same view; what distinguishes one from another is what happens in front of it. On 23 July 2026 we took a terrace table as Siena Jazz set up its stage against the Palazzo Pubblico — the closing night of the city's Sboccia l'Estate season, a Miles Davis songbook followed by a Coltrane tribute, free to anyone who had reserved. A glass of white wine on white linen, red salvias in the planter, and an evening of jazz rolling across the shell of the piazza: it is difficult to argue with the seat. The Campo hosts a handful of evenings like this each summer — concert nights, the Palio's build-up days, the December market — and Il Tufo's terrace is now one of the natural places to watch them from.

Dinner afterwards ran from the grill: a filetto on its cast-iron board with the copper pans in attendance — white beans, grilled vegetables, roast potatoes — and a bright chimichurri for the meat, a South American accent the kitchen wears lightly. An "elegant lasagne", layered under a white sauce with ribbons of tomato, held its own against the grill, and the hand-cut chips would embarrass most of what passes for patate fritte on tourist squares.

Practical Information

Address: Il Campo 15, 53100 Siena — on Piazza del Campo itself.

Hours: daily, 8:30–01:00.

Reservations: online via the restaurant's reservation system, by telephone on +39 0577 559474, or info@ristoranteiltufosiena.it. Book ahead for terrace tables on concert and Palio-season evenings.

Good to know: the aperitivo taglieri run from €8 (Basic) to €15 (Gold); the cellar and privé host private tastings and events.

Continue Reading

• Best Restaurants in Siena
• Siena After Dark: The Enoteca & Aperitivo Scene
• Piazza del Campo, Torre del Mangia & the Palazzo Pubblico

By the Siena & Toscana editors