IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY.
With a menu ranging from shareable plates to pizzas to fresh pasta, our family-owned restaurant will have a full bar including unique and affordable wines by the glass overseen by Travis Serbus (Lynette, Petite Leon) in an intimate and family-friendly dining space.
“We want Bar Siena to evoke a feeling of sitting at the family dinner table and enjoying the presence of the people you're there with, to connect with each other. We want to make sure that there is a meaningful human element right away when guests walk into the door” said Chef/Owner Rhett Roberts.
The restaurant’s warm pastel interiors were inspired by Piazza Duomo in Alba Italy, crafted by Aaron Wittkamper and Building Assets who recently completed the hit north loop restaurant Dario, but true inspiration came from closer to home: Co-Owners, husband and wife Rhett and Emily Roberts all reside nearby and parent twins, six-year-old Hendrix and Siena Roberts who the restaurant is named for and dedicated to. The exact shade of pink that the covers the restaurants exterior was even chosen by Siena, the family’s budding artist. Next door to the Roberts family is Siena’s grandmother and co-owner Lisa Roberts, Ala "Gigi," also co- owner whose 24-hour braised pork rib spaghetti is adapted into “Pappardelle alla Lisa” on the menu with hand cut noodles and a complex braised pork sauce, a fusion of family and Italian history.
Rhett’s culinary journey began among undulating hills, relics of castles, and parmesan cheese deep in rural Italy where a wwoofing trip expanded into a lifelong passion for the craft of Italian cooking. He started out as a dishwasher at the 112 eatery where Isaac Becker’s flavors and techniques moved the Twin Cities Dining scene forward. He went on to work for Vincent, an education in French technique, before discovering a mentor in Landon Schoenefeld and his adventurous, boisterous, infamous restaurant Haute Dish made space for Rhett’s culinary philosophy of playfully unpretentious takes on comfort food to truly grow. As sous chef at Surly’s Brewer’s Table Rhett oversaw a kitchen always reinventing itself and developed a charcuterie program. As Executive chef at Petite Leon, he oversaw the kitchen of one of Minneapolis’s top restaurants named one of the best in the country by the New York Times.
Bar Siena’s menu will include shareable appetizers including ‘nduja flavored eggplant bruschetta, rotating hand made pastas including ricotta gnocchi and a two-sheet lasagna, old-school deck-oven pizzas including cornichon dill pizza with aged gouda, and a classic pepperoni, and larger main format plates including braised short rib with rosemary potatoes and Rhett’s take on a roast half chicken. Desserts will include an updated spin on french silk pie and affogatos. Drinks will include wine, beer and cocktails including a Fernet-spiked bushwhacker called the Dolemite and other bangers.
The butcher block workstation where each day fresh pastas are rolled out will double as a kitchen table for diners who want an up close and personal culinary experience and a platform for intimate cooking classes focused around handmade foods.
Bar Siena hopes to be a neighborhood restaurant, a rustically elegant dining space equally comfortable for a Wednesday night dinner with the family as for any special occasion. “First and foremost we want Bar Siena to be a neighborhood restaurant, a happy place for the family to hang out. We also want a place where we can give back to the community we love so much.“ - Rhett Roberts.
Bar Siena opens for dinner service only in late 2024.