Restaurants’ thumbs-up for food hygiene website

The new page was launched yesterday. In the past the list was in PDF format, which was updated on an ad-hoc basis with just the name of the business and how many stars it had received.

The new system can be updated instantly, and includes details of how a business has done in each category – these are how they handle food, the cleanliness and condition of facilities and the management of food safety.

In the past a number of businesses have complained that while their kitchen was clean and their food fine to eat, they had scored a low rating as they had not filled in their paperwork correctly, which includes fridge temperature measurements and cleaning charts.

The Old Quarter has enjoyed a five-star rating since the system was introduced.

Owner Paddy Scally said he was pleased that customers could now see he scored ‘good’ in all three categories, but it also allowed people to know more about different restaurants.

‘It is a good thing,’ he said.

La Trelade Hotel, was given a one-star rating when it was inspected last August.

Daniel Elsadany took over the restaurant in September, which has been renamed Sahara City, and has guided it back to a four-star rating.

He said the new website was good as it showed that improvement.

‘It is a good system,’ he said. ‘When I took over, there was no paperwork implemented and coming from the UK, I knew you needed that. So we implemented paperwork and we employed someone straight away to educate staff. We went from one star to four stars and we expect to get to five stars.’

Moroccan-inspired hotel Ziggurat serves food to its guests.

Director Genevieve Langford said she thought the website was well laid out and easy to navigate.

‘There are lots of ways that the information hub could be extended and as such be a real asset to industry and consumers,’ she said.

n The public can visit the website at www.gov.gg/fhis.