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This story has taken it from an idiosyncratic dining room at Cathedral House to Michelin recognition, rave reviews from UK critics, an unexpected closure and then a much bigger second act in the centre of Glasgow.

Along the way, Celentano’s has developed a style of cooking that feels entirely its own. Italian in spirit rather than rigidly traditional, it combines Scottish produce with pasta-making, fermentation, preserving, curing, cooking over fire and an almost obsessive determination to extract as much flavour as possible from every ingredient.

Chef Dean Parker grew up in South Africa, where his grandparents ran a hotel and some of his earliest memories of food involved vegetables from his grandfather’s garden and his grandmother’s baking. After moving to Britain at 19, he built his career in London.

He worked at Lamberts and with Tom Aikens before beginning a long association with chef Robin Gill, becoming part of the team behind The Dairy in Clapham. He later ran The Manor and Sorella and became head chef at Darby’s, close to the US Embassy in London.

Those kitchens helped shape an approach built around fermentation, whole-animal cookery and making ingredients work harder.

Anna Parker is from Glasgow, she studied French and history at Glasgow University and completing a master’s in international fashion marketing. She worked in fashion buying before moving into hospitality.

While the couple were in London the idea of their own restaurant began taking shape. 

The story of the restaurant states: “Our love and passion for food is one of the things that brought us together. Every date started with a drink here, and a snack there. We always knew we wanted to start our own venture, but were waiting for the right space, the right time and the right idea.

“After spending two weeks touring Italy on our honeymoon we knew that whatever we did, the concept had to be Italian-inspired. The sense of family, sharing and celebration in Italian food is something we love, and the way we love to enjoy our meals. The name was inspired by a song we heard on repeat during our honeymoon.”

When I spoke to Dean and Anna, after they had moved on to their stylish, modern dining room at The Arthouse hotel on Glasgow’s Bath Street, I asked about the decision to move to Glasgow to follow their restaurant ambitions.

They explained that Glasgow offered a direct route to opening, on more achievable terms than anything they could expect in London. There was also the added benefit of support from Anna’s family in Glasgow as they started a family - this second version of Celentano’s was opened while they balanced pursuing the new project with parenting a three year old, who is a big fan of their pasta dishes. 

They were also aware of the restaurants making great strides in defying expectations around the food scene in Glasgow and Edinburgh and wanted to be part of this movement, that extends across a new generation of Scottish restaurants. 

Today Dean runs the kitchen while Anna has shaped almost everything around it, from the service and wine to the identity of Celentano’s.

They loved the culture around eating in Italy: dishes arriving for the table, bottles being opened and meals allowed to unfold without ceremony. That’s informed the experience, while the atmosphere of the original neighbourhood restaurant has translated to the city centre. 

Cathedral House, the distinctive red sandstone building overlooking Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis, provided Celentano’s with a restaurant that immediately felt different. The food might have involved considerable technical skill, but the atmosphere was relaxed.

Pasta could sit alongside Scottish meat and fish. Fermented ingredients appeared everywhere. Bread, pasta, charcuterie and desserts were made in-house.

It was Italian food viewed through the experiences of a chef who had spent years in ambitious London kitchens, then rebuilt around the ingredients available in Scotland.

Within six months of opening, Celentano’s had been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand, given to restaurants recognised for particularly good cooking at good value.

It became one of the restaurants at the centre of a new generation of Glasgow dining, alongside small independents increasingly confident enough to do something very specific.

Then, just as Celentano’s had established its reputation, Cathedral House was sold.

Celentano’s served its final meals there on 31 December 2025.

Serendipity then played a part, Dean had an approach from a company establishing a new hotel brand. The restaurant team kept their skills sharp through a series of pop-ups while conversations quickly moved to a fully established plan for a new home. 

The restaurant reopened inside the new Arthouse hotel on Bath Street, moving to one of the busiest streets in Glasgow city centre.

The new Celentano’s seats around 60 guests, approximately doubling the capacity of its former home. The kitchen is also substantially bigger, freeing up some capacity for reinvention. 

Fresh pasta remained central, with agnolotti filled with Mossgiel ricotta and linguine with crab and ’nduja XO joining the returning flavours of Dexter beef ragù.

Larger dishes allow the kitchen to make more of whole fish and cuts of meat butchered in-house, while the restaurant has also introduced a chef’s menu built around sharing.

The new dining room revolves around a zinc-topped cocktail bar, with reclaimed timber flooring, exposed brick, glazed tiles and a mixture of vintage and contemporary furniture.

Cocktails at the bar are a particular treat. They make a dazzling Vermouth-heavy negroni. 

Celentano’s has moved from a quirky destination dining outpost on the border of Glasgow’s East End to its main event era with more ambitious menus while still retaining a distinctive personality. It’s on its way to becoming one of the most interesting dining rooms in Scotland. 

Find them at Arthouse Glasgow, 129 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 2SZ.

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