A Soho restaurant has been ordered to pay £9,800 after pleading guilty to breaching food hygiene laws following the discovery of cockroaches running across the floor near food chillers.
Alfonso Bragaglia, 29, director of La Porchetta Pollo Bar on Old Compton Street, pleaded guilty to four offences of failing to comply with EU food safety and hygiene regulation and was fined at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
Handing down the sentence, lead magistrate Phiroze Neemuchwala said: “We take notice of your early guilty pleas and we take notice of your remorse and remediation on the matters however we are going to sentence you on one matter at the top band.”
Mr Neemuchwala fined Mr Bragaglia’s company, Bragalia Investments Ltd, £5,280 and more than £4,500 in costs for one offence and issued no separate penalty for the other three.
The court heard how inspectors issued a hygiene emergency notice to shut the Soho eatery after visiting on December 9, 2022.
According to court documents, inspectors closed the restaurant after noticing an “active and widespread” cockroach infestation. It reopened a month later following a minor refurbishment and deep clean.
Solicitor Kirsty Panton, representing Westminster City Council, said during the visit, inspectors saw the head chef prepare cuttlefish over some broccoli, and juice from the fish leaked onto the vegetable. The chef also admitted to using the wrong chopping board.
She said inspectors found the hand wash basin blocked by lettuce heads, grease dripping from the cooker into trays and mice droppings on the ground.
They found lasagne being cooked above desserts in the same oven, which inspectors feared carried cross contamination risks and found cockroaches scuttling off after moving three chillers.
They also saw a cockroach close to food while court documents show inspectors found a meat mincer and slicer “encrusted in dirt” with the chef on duty admitting it hadn’t been cleaned in days.
The document also showed ready and raw food were left next to each other risking cross-contamination and general poor cleaning and hygiene throughout the premises.
Mr Bragaglia said he was unaware of the infestation and was never alerted by the pest control firm he had hired. He said a deep clean had been carried out days before the inspection which he suggested may have meant pest control missed the infestation as a result.
Responding, Ms Panton said: “While some of the responsibility was accepted [by the defendant], a lot was given to pest control. But it fell short of approved standards in place.”
She added: “While no injuries or illnesses have been recorded, it does not mean there was a low risk of an adverse impact.”
The court also heard how La Porchetta has been inspected in 2018 and 2021 with cockroaches being found on site both times.
Redmond Traynor, representing Mr Bragaglia and Bragaglia Investments, said his client had taken control of La Porchetta from his father in 2017 and was still getting to grips with his new role when the inspection in 2018 took place.
The venue was revisited in July last year and given a food hygiene rating of three out of five stars, he said. Mr Traynor added his client had a cleaning system in place at the time of the inspection but admitted it was inadequate.
He said since the inspection, staff at La Porchetta carry out daily cleans. Mr Traynor said Mr Bragaglia closed the restaurant to replace the chillers over the Christmas period to get rid of the infestation and hired a new pest control company.
He said: “This is a case in which Mr Bragaglia realised immediately how important it was to recognise what had happened and make sure it never happens again.
“The point is he has taken it seriously and done a huge amount of mitigation since last year and a testament to this is how quickly he got the restaurant reopened.”
