A popular restaurant and cocktail bar has been told to make ‘major improvements’ to ensure the food it serves is safe to eat. Otium restaurant in Weston-super-Mare has been issued with a worst possible score following an inspection by North Somerset Council's environmental health teams last month.
Officers carried out the inspection after the authority received a complaint about the premises. Inspectors said major improvement was needed to the restaurant’s food safety processes to ensure food sold at the Carlton Street venue was safe to eat, reports Somerset Live.
Inspectors said that systems and checks needed to be put in place to evidence that staff know about food safety and that standards would be maintained in the future. Restaurant bosses were also told that major improvements were also needed to the hygienic handling of food preparation, its cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage.
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The inspection also revealed that improvements were needed to the cleanliness and condition of the building - including ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control - to enable good food hygiene.
A North Somerset Council spokesman said: “Our food safety officers visited and inspected Otium in Weston-super-Mare on March 1, following a complaint they had received. The premises achieved a food hygiene rating of zero which means ‘urgent improvement necessary.’ "They will now work with our Food Safety team to improve food hygiene standards.”
Otium company director Carl said: "I speak for our entire team when I say that we were deeply saddened when advised of a '0' hygiene rating, especially as a new business that had gained two previous 5* ratings.
"The rating was down to a lack of 'confidence in management'. Following the visit, within 24hours we had made the immediate changes to the team along with changing the members of the management and ensuring we brought the correct people in to do the job.
"Along with the above we made immediate reviews of all our policies and practices which historically gained us our 5* ratings. Food safety and customer satisfaction is a priority for us at Otium and we take both extremely seriously.
"We operate an open kitchen and bar area where we are constantly on show preparing all our dishes fresh daily. We have already been in contact with our environmental health officer advising of the above and we hope to have a reinspection in the very near future to regain our 5* rating."
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