Indian restaurant in Harborough district had buckets collecting water from collapsed celling, ‘dirty’ floors and ‘an unidentified brown mass’
An Indian restaurant in the Harborough district has been given one of the lowest food hygiene ratings after inspectors found a number of worrying findings – but the owner claims most of them were down to mother nature.
Satya Restaurant, in London Road in Great Glen, was given a 1-out-of-5 rating by Harborough District Council (HDC) food hygiene inspectors following a visit on May 15.
One of the inspector’s most worrying finds was a number of potential cross-contamination risks, including “inadequate separation between raw meat and other foods”.
Containers of cooked meat being stored on the shelf adjacent to containers of raw marinating meat were also found, while a black bag full of coriander, left on the bottom shelf, was discovered next to a bag of raw meat.
A colander of rice was also found left to drain in a back room, which inspectors said was not a “safe method of handling rice”.
There were also “poor storage practices”, including leaving vegetables in plastic shopping carrier bags and spices not being appropriately covered at the end of service.
Handwashing was also a major concern after the inspector found that the hand-wash basin was not being used regularly, and there was “no sanitiser found in the premises”. The inspector told restaurant bosses that cleaning regimes were “wholly inadequate” and “presented a cross-contamination risk”.
The inspection also found a number of worrying cleanliness and structural concerns, including walls and floor being “dirty”, food debris inside fridges which needed to be cleaned and “dirty” spice containers with “lots of spillage” around the containers.
Inspectors also found what they called “an unidentified brown mass” on the floor next to a dishwasher, which they believed was a blocked gully, and a pile of dirty cloths was noted above the tandoor oven.
It was also noted that insulation material from the ceiling was falling through in the storeroom, which saw “water being caught in buckets” and a damaged wall near the entrance of a back room.
There were also concerning food safety findings by inspectors who said that “food safety was not managed in the business” and knowledge and understanding of food handlers was “inadequate” and all required refresher training on food hygiene.
The inspectors told Satya’s bosses that all of these issues needed to be addressed “immediately”, and a follow-up visit would take place on May 26 or May 27.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Raj Gurmakh, manager of Satya, said that all of the issues found by inspectors had been addressed.
He also said that many of the structural issues were due to a storm that flooded part of the business, and he was waiting for the landlord to fix them while building work was taking place during the inspection.
He added: “Unfortunately, on that day, building work was going on, so everything was a bit over the place, but the inspector did a full report and said she had to give us a low score. We had five stars before that.
“She had revisited again since then and said we would score a four or five now.
“We had work going on, and we couldn’t sort or organise everything, but she has said we would now receive a higher score”.
Mr Gurmakh said he also brought in an independent consultant to review the businesses’ food hygiene practices, who was confident it would achieve a high food hygiene rating.
He also said that the business was waiting for another official reinspection – due to take place on Thursday, August 20, to update the current score.