Food<\/a> Standards Agency website, Ynyshir\u2019s management of food safety required \u201cmajor improvement\u201d. It said the cleanliness and condition of facilities and the building also needed \u201cimprovement\u201d, and \u201chygienic food handling\u201d was rated \u201cgenerally satisfactory\u201d.<\/p>\nYnyshir (pronounced Un-is-heer) serves a 30-course tasting menu starting at \u00a3468 a person, which changes daily but heavily features beef and traditional Japanese raw fish known as sashimi, as well as oysters, duck liver and caviar. Meals are served in a black-painted dining room, accompanied by occasional clouds of birch smoke and an in-house DJ\u2019s techno mixes to \u201ctake diners on a playful culinary journey around the globe\u201d over five hours.<\/p>\n
Welsh wagyu rib at Ynyshir. Photograph: Francesca Jones\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
The food critic Giles Coren sprang to Ward\u2019s defence on Wednesday, telling the BBC that health and safety rules \u201cdon\u2019t really apply\u201d to elite restaurants such as Ynyshir, which was named the UK\u2019s best restaurant in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about your fridge and \u2018have you put the roast chicken from last night next to the raw chicken\u2019, which can lead to bacteria. It\u2019s a different sort of world,\u201d Coren said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coren\u2019s comments were met with outrage by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), which said Coren risked giving the impression that food hygiene rules were \u201coptional, subjective or old-fashioned\u201d.<\/p>\n
Una Kane, CIEH\u2019s food advisory panel chair, said in a statement: \u201cMany restaurants offer a unique experience for diners while meeting the standards of food hygiene legislation \u2026 It\u2019s insulting to those restaurateurs to imply you can\u2019t do both. No food business should see itself as above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward\u2019s outspokenness has raised eyebrows before. He answered \u201cfuck that\u201d to the suggestion chefs should cook for customers, rather than themselves, and has defended his high prices by saying Ynyshir should \u201cprobably be more expensive\u201d. In 2023, a diner claimed he had challenged her husband to a fight. The restaurant did not comment on the specific allegations, calling the boss \u201ca gentle giant\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Ward has acknowledged that the food safety officers were \u201cnot 100% wrong\u201d, and has since installed an additional hand-washing station in the fish preparation area. He also claimed overwhelming paperwork was part of the problem.<\/p>\n
Tomono Davies, the London-based founder of Tomono Sushi Party, which provides sushi-making experiences, said she found the UK\u2019s food safety rules \u201cshockingly difficult\u201d, but sashimi preparation in itself should not affect a hygiene rating.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know whether the food rating was fair, I haven\u2019t been there or talked to them, but I did find it strange when he mentioned it was because of handling raw and aged fish,\u201d she said. \u201cSo many restaurants handle raw food, steak tartare has even stricter rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe regulations are much kinder in Japan than here. I think it\u2019s a cultural difference, because the level of cleanliness and chef discipline in Japan is higher. Here, it\u2019s more about saving yourself because you don\u2019t want to get sued or go out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Lowe, the chef-owner of Michelin-starred Lyle\u2019s in east London, which closed last year, said his establishment had once received a two-star hygiene rating.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne inspector was more senior, the other was introduced as a trainee. The trainee freaked out at a label on a cheese that said \u2018unpasteurised\u2019, she thought it was dangerous. That\u2019s when I thought, \u2018Oh my God, this is going to be difficult.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother time, after the cheese fiasco, there were five sheep carcasses hanging in the walk-in fridge and [the inspectors] refused to go into the fridge. They were also horrified by pork that had been aged in salt for two months. They told me to throw it away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hackney council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
For now, Ynyshir must follow Welsh law by displaying its one-star hygiene certificate in a prominent place in the entrance or dining room. The business said it has requested a re-inspection, but no date has yet been set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to a critic who has eaten at every three-star Michelin restaurant in the world, Gareth Ward, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-700765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115907069448865284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}