Marco Pierre White’s flagship restaurant in Birmingham has received a ZERO food hygiene rating from environmental health officers.
The celebrity chef’s swanky venue on the 25th floor of The Cube is one of three high-profile city centre restaurants that have been slapped with the bottom grade.
Malmaison in the Mailbox and Chaophraya on Spiceal Street at the Bullring have also been rated zero by Birmingham City Council due to either poor standards of hygiene, structure, confidence in management – or a combination of these factors.
They ranked alongside the likes of Dixy Chicken, in Dudley Road, Soho, and Lea Village’s Lucky House – not so lucky when an inspector called.
They are among 140 venues across Birmingham which are currently zero-rated, according to the Food Standards Agency.
Diners at sophisticated Marco’s can expect to pay about £50 a head, while at Thai restaurant Chaophraya, a main course of green chicken curry will set you back £10.55 and a steak stroganoff at Malmaison costs £19.
A Marco Pierre White restaurant insider said: “We had a visit from Environmental Health in March this year who made some recommendations on our food preparations. They have returned subsequently and been happy with their findings.
“They made some recommendations based around the volume of people we feed in our restaurant. No danger or nothing untoward.”
A spokesman from Marco Pierre White said: “We can confirm that we received a visit from the Environmental Health Department of Birmingham City Council earlier this year. The feedback was provided in an informal manner by the EHO with some recommendations.
“These were acted on by the management team and subsequent revisits have all been very positive. We continue to work closely with Birmingham City Council and have appointed a third party food safety consultant to ensure we remain up to date with the rigorous industry regulations and the ongoing changes in legislation and practice.”
They did not want to explain why the rating was given.
A Birmingham City Council spokeswoman said: “Marco Pierre White was informed their FSA rating would drop and it has been published on the FSA website. A certificate and window sticker confirming their zero rating was sent to the restaurant on 25 March 2014.”
Marco Pierre White Steakhouse Bar & Grill has only been open since December 2011. Its food hygiene and safety were found to be “bad,” while structural compliance was deemed poor.
On its website Malmaison said its Brasserie “serves a host of classic dishes, but always with an unexpected twist.”
Malmaison earned its zero rating on February 4 this year, when food hygiene and safety were found to be “very bad.”
Chaophraya describes itself online as “one of the city’s most popular eateries – day or night”.
It adds the restaurant “offers a wonderful array of authentic dishes prepared for all to see in the open kitchen.”
Chaophraya scored zero on January 21 this year – food hygiene and safety were rated as “poor.”
No one was immediately available to comment from Chaophraya or Malmaison.
Thousands of inspections are carried out across the city every year.
The city council spokeswoman added: “Hotels, restaurants, takeaways, food retailers and manufacturers are all included in a regular inspection programme and officers also respond to enquiries and concerns raised by customers who may be concerned about conditions they see in food businesses they visit.
“In Birmingham most food businesses operate to a good standard, but if they fall below satisfactory standards, our officers carry out revisits, and take proportionate enforcement action to ensure that standards are improved.
“Where premises pose an imminent risk to health – eg where there is an active rodent infestation, severe drainage problems or filthy conditions – officers will act to close a business down immediately until it has rectified the problems. This usually only takes a few days to allow the business to bring in proper systems and carry out necessary treatment and repairs.
“On average, we will take emergency action on about 40 food businesses – from between 3,000 and 4,000 inspections – each year. Therefore a very small proportion of serious problems are found in food businesses and the public can be assured these are dealt with quickly. If consumers wish to report any food hygiene issues they can do this via our website www.birmingham.gov.uk.”
Where an inspection has resulted in a zero rating, council enforcement officers will automatically revisit the premises that have received it to ensure improvements are made to ensure higher standards of hygiene are being achieved. A revisit does not automatically include a rating re-score.
Where a business is unsatisfied with the rating it receives, it can request a re-score from three months after the date of the original inspection but must clearly state what they have done to improve hygiene standards. Businesses can only request one re-score between programmed inspections.
A zero rating will remain valid, unless successfully re-scored, until the date of the business’s next programmed inspection, which could be between six and 18 months’ time.
