Il Balcone Di Leonina - ASCIANO

We have been staying in the Hotel and dined on Ferragosto with a special dinner menu. The menu itself has been good and creative but not quite special all in all a solid 4 points. Unfortunately we have been a bit early for an Italian dinner 8 PM which caused a major upset. We hade our wine chosen and good our starter palter ... than after 1.5h !! of waiting we finally got our first course all in all we had to spend 4h which was way to long for me. The main waiter was very friendly but the rest has been quite cold distant. The view is breath taking and the best part of the restaurant.

I’m reviewing the restaurant at Castello di Leonina separately from the hotel because I have different impressions. The view is without parallel. Sunset over Tuscan fields was priceless. The menu was not vegetarian friendly, but after some negotiations, we arranged some adjustments and had fine food. The service was a bit … distant … is the only word I can come up with. It’s like the staff didn’t really want to be there. My husband put it down to an aloofness. The food was good and locally sourced, if not very veggie-friendly, the views were unsurpassed, so I walked away happy even if I felt ever so slightly put-off by the wait staff.

The restaurant is housed in a small building next to Castello di Leonina Relais. The service is excellent, very attentive without being intrusive. The menu is not huge, but there is plenty of choice. The freshness and the taste of the food are hard to describe, it felt like the veg had only just been harvested. The wine selection was appropriate to the choice of food. We had one of the best meals during our holiday at Il Balcone and will visit again, when we return.

We stayed two weeks in Siena, firstly just to the west and then a second week to the south east. This place is listed under Asciano, but it 's actually closer to Siena but you will need a car to reach it. For us the relais was literally on our doorstep just one Crete hilltop away. It 's not sign posted, even from the road, so you need to hunt it out but it 's well worth it, half a mile up a bumpy unmade road. On our visit we ate inside in the evening, as there had been a thunderstorm a couple of hours earlier. It 's a charming restaurant with a white washed ceiling and beautifully laid out tables. Three of us had pasta for starters, the other as a main. It was all a bit different: tasty tortellini with cherry tomatoes and aubergine, wholesome pici with sun dried tomatoes and pistachios and gnocchi that was pink, served with squid. The other starter was a delicious cheese and bacon 'pie ' almost soufflé like. For mains the three non pastas were a veal tagliata, tasty little lamb chops and a stuffed rabbit roll. All a bit different. This was accompanied by a good value Vino Nobile. And as it was our last night 3 of us had puddings too.

We ate here last night whilst staying at the hotel. The restaurant is in a separate building a few metres from the main hotel. The dining room is simply but elegantly decorated and provided a good environment for our evening meal. The choice was relatively small ie 2 dishes for each of the 4 courses but this was fine for us all as we liked all what was on offer. We were given a complementary Prosecco before the meal. The 5 of us actually chose almost identical meals mixed meat, cheese and honey for antipasti (lovely including the spicy fig jam . For pasta we had the duck pici (thick spaghetti! which was superb and perfectly cooked. Main was the pork fillet which was cooked medium and was melt in your mouth (this cut is prone to being dry so it was well cooked . Most of us went for the dessert wine with biscotti as our dessert never had it before and was a good way to finish off an excellent meal. Service was first class throughout and all the waiters spoke good English.