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.

White Truffles will be available in the restaurant from Thursday 9th November 2023

What the reviewers say…

  • "Alessio's spaghetti with a cream-bolstered sauce of velvet crabs is the sort of thing that has you sweeping about the bowl with the pad of your finger."

    Jay Rayner : The Observer : July 2011

  • "The sheer brilliance of Giorgio Alessio’s cooking and his fanaticism about using only the finest ingredients make La Lanterna the unlikeliest destination restaurant in the land."

    Matthew Norman : The Telegraph : May 2014

  • "There wouldn’t have been any problems with the perfect fish soup, cooked up by Giorgio Alessio, the chef patron of one of the UK’s most famous fish restaurants, La Lanterna in Scarborough. It had just a bit of olive oil, onion, tomatoes and a variety of the freshest of sustainable North Sea fish. But Giorgio — Italian born and bred — has embraced his Yorkshireness with abandon and insists on deep-fried bread floating on the soup."

    Jenni Murray : Mail Online : August 2011

  • "...a great cook in thrall to great ingredients. It’s the soul of real Italian cookery."

    Tom Parker Bowles : Daily Mail : December 2014

  • "So what was the best meal you have eaten this year?” asked my friend over a shared apple tarte tatin. I had a think and came up with dinner at La Lanterna in Scarborough, partly for a mushroom risotto that will never be forgot, but also for a half-hour spent listening to Giorgio Alessio, a superb chef, talk with unbridled Italianate passion about his love of cooking."

    Matthew Norman : The Telegraph : July 2014

  • "Lanterna has that touch of alchemy that stands between an OK bowl of pasta and a dish that shoots you down a wormhole all the way to Italy."

    Pascal Wyse : The Guardian : July 2010

  • "The battered langoustines turned out to be six gigantic, butterflied crustaceans of scarcely conceivable sweetness and tenderness"

    Christopher Hirst : The Independent : September 2010

images by tony bartholomew | website by sneakytrick