La Lanterna is one of the most renowned restaurants in Glasgow City Centre, a family run restaurant passed down through the generations. Here is the story from the team who run it.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The restaurant was opened in September 1970. It was opened by my father.
00:06He was a chef in Glasgow at the time and the opportunity came up with another gentleman to open up the restaurant.
00:14And they moved here and they opened up what's now known as La Lanterna.
00:19It's always been called La Lanterna and it was a small restaurant before, seated about 40 people.
00:25And then through the years of development we've made the restaurant bigger and now we seat up to about 100 people.
00:32It's still family owned. I own the restaurant myself along with my business partner Luca.
00:37He entered the business in 1998 when my father passed away.
00:42We took over the restaurant together and since then we've been going from strength to strength.
00:47It's very popular. We've got lots of regular customers, people that have been coming for years.
00:53Some families, believe it or not, now we're on the third or fourth generation of the same family that have been coming to the restaurant from the people from the early 70s.
01:03And things just evolve and the restaurant just manages to keep up and also set standards for Italian cuisine and hospitality in the city of Glasgow.
01:15The main reason that the restaurant is still going after 54 years is the fact that myself and Luca, we work in the restaurant every day, more or less every day.
01:26We've got another restaurant up in the West End as well that we opened seven years ago and we sort of flipped between.
01:32But more often than not you'll find us here in the city centre and I think that's the key because people like familiarity.
01:39Also the staff as well. A lot of the staff have been with us for many years.
01:43We've got a number of staff that have been with us over 10, 15 years now that have worked in the restaurant.
01:49And that also breeds familiarity with the customers.
01:53The customers like to see the same faces they feel at home.
01:57Obviously everybody goes around to find other restaurants, try new places that open.
02:03But I think here we give that added level of comfort along with all the other things as well that are important in a business.
02:09Obviously quality, value for money, service is extremely important as well.
02:14And all those things together, it's all the key, it's all hard work, commitment and everything you put into your business that's important.
02:21I'm from Italy, Italian.
02:24Glasgow changed really, really a lot.
02:27Even the taste of the people.
02:29Before the people would be happy, they were not as selective as they are now.
02:35So the Glasgow people, they become more concerned with food.
02:40And so we have to be careful what we serve, how you do it, all that.
02:44So we really grow and Glasgow really grow. I saw that much in Glasgow.