How clean is your favourite Newcastle restaurant?
By Paul Smith • Aug 1st, 2008 • Category: favourite, food
If you’ve never seen the site before, scoresonthedoors.org.uk provides a revealing glimpse into the kitchens of your favourite Newcastle eateries.
Using information made available through the Freedom of Information act, the site publishes hygiene assessments of restaurants and cafes conducted by local councils.
So how do restaurants in the city measure up to Newcastle City Council’s inspections? You can find your favourite lunchtime haunt or romantic table for two here, but we’ve dug out some of the best and the worst examples the city has to offer.
We’d better point out the obvious; since some of these assessments were carried out, there may have been a change in staff or management, and standards of hygiene are no reflection on whether the chef knows his onions. Or other vegetables, for that matter.
Five stars - excellent (based on Newcastle Food Hygiene Star Rating)
The Living Room, Grey Street
Eye on the Tyne, Broad Chare
Piccolino, Stockbridge
Zizzi, Grey Street
The Forth Hotel, Pink Lane
No stars - major improvement required
Utong, Saint James Boulevard
Thali, Dean Street
Saffron, Sandhill
Big Mussel, Side
The Spice Cube, The Gate
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Paul Smith is the editor of newcastlecentric.com. He's quite a tall chap.
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Thanks for the heads up! Thankfully, none of the bottom five are anything I would fancy anyway…and I’ll certainly stay away now. The sad thing is, bad news travels much faster than good so their reputations have a long, long journey to repair themselves. Note to businesses: far easier and better to do things properly to start with!