A Yorkshire institution, La Lanterna Ristorante has stood on the same site in Queen Street for almost 40 years now. Chef-patron Giorgio Alessio bought it in 1997, and has worked tirelessly ever since to live up to the accolade given it by the influential Italian daily newspaper La Stampa – ‘the English temple of Italian cuisine’.
This is not a restaurant to visit if you’re after pizza. This is an altogether more refined form of Italian cucina, hailing from Giorgio’s native Piedmont in northern Italy, where the cooler climate and misty autumns call for comfort food of the highest order – game, risotto, pasta, hazelnuts, chocolate – and, of course, the Lanterna’s speciality, truffles.
Giorgio mouthwateringly blends the deep, warm flavours of his youth with the freshness of the local produce that surrounds him in his adopted town – most notably, the fish. Each evening the Lanterna menu has a mind-boggling specials list of fish dishes – and every last piece guaranteed to be so fresh, you can still smell the sea.