La Lanterna, 35 Hope Street, Glasgow

It was another one of those "couldn't be bothered to cook" nights so we headed for an Italian that's literally just around the corner from work - La Lanterna.

The restaurant frontage is a bit dull and dingy looking as the body of the place is downstairs so we'd been passing it by. This time though, we had a look at the menu posted by the door and it looked not bad so down we went for a look at the place. Once downstairs things are much more like what you'd expect an italian restaurant to look like - fairly rustic decor and reasonably busy too. With four waiters on, it must get pretty busy later on and it looked like they were set up for a large party too.

Service was friendly and fast so we were soon drinking Italian wine and beer and scoffing bits of crunchy bread while waiting on the starters coming. The menu is pretty traditional fare of anti-pasti, pasta, carni and pesce dishes (no pizzas here). For those starters, we split a Pate Maison (Smooth chicken liver pate served with toast & oatcakes.) and a Carpaccio con Rucola e Parmigiano (Finely sliced smoked beef fillet with parmesan shavings olive oil & lemon juice). It was early and we didn't fancy the full pasta and carni thing so for main courses we had Penne alla Salsiccia (penne with spicy Italian sausage in a tomato & basil sauce) and Risotto Pancetta Funghi E Piselli (Risotto with smoked ham, mushrooms & peas with fresh parmesan & cream).

The food was excellent and we were too full for a sweet, even though they sounded gorgeous. The restaurant has been succesfully run by the same family for over 30 years so it's obvious that the loss has been ours for never venturing down there before now.

Cuisine: Italian
My Rating: 8/10