A top food critic has argued that the normal health and safety rules shouldn’t apply to Michelin-starred restaurants and need to “modernise”.
Giles Coren said that such rules “don’t really apply” in the wake of the two-star Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms receiving a one out of five hygiene rating after food safety inspectors visited in November.
The luxury establishment in Machynlleth in Wales charges almost £500 per head, with the Michelin Guide describing the restaurant as a “truly unique experience”.
However, the Food Standards Agency found that “major improvement” to management of food safety was required, while the cleanliness and condition of the facilities and building also need to be improved.
Speaking on Radio 4’s World at One programme, Mr Coren, who visited Ynyshir in 2022, said: “It is not little kitchens and pots boiling away, mimsy little things being placed on plates.
“He is cooking with fire... He stands there in his leather apron and it’s roaring like fireworks. You’re also, conversely, served quite a lot of raw food. He’s talking about sushi, Japanese techniques.”
Mr Coren, who is a columnist for The Times, said the rules “should probably be modernised”.
“The normal health and safety things, I think it’s fair enough, don’t really apply,” he said.
“It’s much harder to do. It’s not about your fridge and ‘have you put the roast chicken from last night next to the raw chicken’, which can lead to bacteria, it’s a different sort of world.
“They are clearly doing enough to prevent the spread of bacteria, but if you imagine a hygiene inspector, in his white coat, with his pen in his top pocket, expecting to see a neat provincial fridge, I can see that he would lose his mind.
The food advisory panel chair of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said she was “disappointed” by Mr Coren’s views and stressed that “no food business should see itself as above the law”.
“Coren suggested that the nature of the restaurant, which was the subject of a really low food hygiene rating ... meant that ‘normal health and safety things’ should not apply,” said Una Kane.
“We are appalled at the suggestion that it should be considered optional for certain kinds of restaurants to meet legal standards.
“Many restaurants offer a unique experience for diners while meeting the standards of food hygiene legislation.
“It’s insulting to those restaurateurs to imply you can't do both.”
She denied that food safety inspections were a “tick-box exercise” and ensured that food was being handled hygienically and to the best standard possible.
Ynyshir’s top chef Gareth Ward has insisted he is “not embarrassed” by the rating, and said his restaurant is working “at the highest standard in the world”.
He previously told the BBC: “The people in life that push the hardest and think outside the box and do something different will always have to deal with this kind of stuff.
“My standards never drop below 100 per cent.
“I’m not at all ashamed, but I am disappointed. I’m not sat here thinking, ‘Oh my god, I’m embarrassed, I’ve done something wrong,’ because we haven’t. What we have done is something different.”
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