I tried newly opened Celentano’s at Arthouse Hotel Glasgow - my verdict

Sign up to our free Scran food and drink newsletter here

Located within the super stylish Arthouse Hotel on Bath Street in the city centre, it's a huge departure from Celentano’s former home in Cathedral House in the city’s east end, which was put up for sale last year. Inside the look of Celentano’s continues design studio A-nrd’s wider concept for the hotel as an ‘artist’s residence’, translating the atmosphere of a collected and lived-in home into a more understated dining environment. From the reception you can see what looks like a super stylish living room complete with an array of designer chairs and comfortable sofas. It’s the type of interior design I used to dream about until I realised I have too much stuff and am ok with too much mess.

Celentano’s in the Arthouse has become a stripped-back bistro with reclaimed timber flooring, duo-tone walls detailed with timber beading, exposed brickwork and glazed tiling which allow elements of the building’s original fabric to remain visible throughout. It’s a bright and calming space in the late evening sun on the Monday night that we visit. Seating 60, the restaurant unfolds around a bespoke zinc-topped cocktail bar, where a mix of vintage and minimalist timber chairs is combined with banquette seating, alongside bespoke burr oak and hand-hammered zinc tables produced by local Scottish metalworkers. A semi-private dining room enclosed by soft privacy curtains offers a more secluded setting within the wider restaurant, whilst an open kitchen pass brings a sense of theatre and energy to the space.

It’s a very different look and feel to the former home, but regulars will be dying to know if the menu has changed as much as the setting. I’m here to tell you that the lasagne fritte and smoked cod doughnuts are back as is the artfully presented Celentano’s affogato but there are new dishes too, as well as a chef’s menu alongside the a la carte options. All dishes are produce-led, minimal-waste approach, centred around nose-to-tail cookery and fermentation and preservation methods, with ingredients often cooked over embers and almost everything made in-house - from bread to pasta, charcuterie and gelato.

While the chef’s menu looked delicious, and takes the decision-making out of ordering, we chose from the a la carte menu when we visited and had to reunite ourselves with those tangy, spicy, kimchi topped cod doughnuts and the crispy bites of lasagne fritte with its rich cora linn and porcini filling. We also tucked into crispy chicken skins served with turnip and kombu ketchup served on lettuce leaves.

For the primi pasta courses we chose the Agnolotti served with Mossgiel ricotta, a vibrant courgette sauce punctuated with green olives with bite and texture from pumpkin seeds and berber chilli. Alongside the crab linguine with an umami nduja XO sauce. Choose the small plates if you’re going for mains too although it’d be easy to eat more of both with the ricotta a lovely fresh dish for summer and the crab a moreish main.

For the mains we shared a 500g sirloin steak which was the cut of the day and theatrically presented sliced and next to the bone with tropea onions and spelt kimchi. We also, somewhat ambitiously, also ordered the dayboat monkfish served with wilted greens and roe butter and a side of the potato strati - the prettiest hash browns cooked in beef fat and sprinkled with sea salt.

The beef had a wonderful, caramel-sweet and smokiness to it with the fat full of flavour. The onions and spelt just added to the complexity while the monkfish, with its mother of pearl sheen was cut in three thick medallions, including skin, and was a meaty yet tender, soaking in all the flavours of the salty roe butter while the potatoes were wonderfully crispy and bursting with flavour.

Almost too full for dessert, we shared the BBQ peaches served with amazing, salty milk gelato, cream, slivers of the shortest shortbread and slices of peaches. A sensational summery end to an epic meal.

Throughout I drank excellent non alcoholic cocktails including a no-groni, and tart and fruity Freddo while my partner enjoyed the full fat negroni, a special nectarine gimlet and the sweet, smoky and mind-blowingly good Vecchio, which is Glenmorangie, Amaro Montenegro, lapsang tincture and yoghurt caramel.

It’s great to have Celentano’s back and despite looking a bit different, it’s everything it ever was and even better than before. I’m sure the hotel-setting will bring in some new faces but it hasn’t changed so much as to put off regulars who, rightly, love the excellent food and drinks. So cheers to this new chapter for this old favourite.

Celentano’s is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Reservations can be made at celentanos.com.