Sienna’s Scrabble tile-like sign is simple yet elegant, just like Chef Ken Vedrinski’s Italian food at his Daniel Island restaurant.
Sienna hosts one of the more stylish herb gardens I’ve seen, featuring basil, sage, and more just out the back door.
Sienna’s herbs weren’t limited to the fountain. They extended to this palm-studded field, also behind the restaurant.
With yellow walls and handsome wood decor, the space was an effective vessel for Vedrinski’s powerhouse cuisine.
Fresh-baked Italian bread was excellent with high-class olive oil, but still several tiers below Chef Vedrinski’s beyond-incredible chive biscuits, which he served when the restaurant opened in 2004.
A paper cone of fritto misto contained succulent chunks of thickly-battered grouper, local white shrimp, asparagus, served with a dish of lemon olive oil emulsion.
Sienna Caesar salad, incorporating Sicilian white anchovies and parmesan “crostini.” Long romaine spears bathed liberally in dressing, fantastic with the glorified crouton.
Magnificent roasted boneless Palmetto Farms quail “Salimbocca” topping fontina, duck prosciutto, and sage from the garden in back of the restaurant, along with pasta folds.
Our pasta course led off with luxurious parmesan gnocchi, pancetta, mushrooms, English peas, and truffle butter.
Fettuccine incorporated more delicious local white shrimp, cherry tomatoes, and fresh-picked herbs.
Long pasta fingers are called strozzapretti, AKA priest stranglers, so named because priests were known to gorge on them until they could barely breathe. This version was topped with a heap of ground duck, tomato sauce, and herbs.
Angus beef in three preparations: filet topped with almost-caramelized King trumpet mushrooms, on a bed of mascarpone potato puree; braised short rib cannelloni with fontina and diced tomatoes on a bed of spinach; and scaloppine topped with melted gorgonzola and diced tomatoes, all poured with balsamic reduction. The melted gorgonzola sauce may have been overly rich, but the beef was impeccable, and the short rib and filet were beyond delicious. In Manhattan, this dish could command $50, and still be worth it. In this Charleston suburb: $24!
Apple strips arrived in a flaky cinnamon pastry cup with vanilla ice cream and intense dried cherries reduced with Chianti and chestnut honey.
Clockwise from the top: chocolate chip ice cream, red currant sorbet, pistachio ice cream, and strawberry ice cream, all in thin candied cones. Strawberry was my favorite, made by folding roasted strawberries into vanilla ice cream.
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