A Warfield restaurant has hit back after receiving a one star rating in a food standards inspection.

On January 4, the Indian restaurant ‘Spice Lounge’ was awarded the one star food hygiene rating  despite being told that food handling and management of food safety was ‘generally satisfactory’.

The restaurant which has a long history of five star ratings and advanced fire safety proceedures were appalled to find that they were never given the choice to appeal.

The Promotions and communications officer, Jay explained: “When the inspector came in, there was no dialogue and there definitely was a lapse in communications.

“There have been a lot of issues with flooding and staffing issues over Covid and because of that we did have renovations taking place however there was never any contamination that would suggest a one star rating.”

Following the inspection, the Spice Lounge reached out to environmental health services to go over the report as an external third party objective.

They said: “We were told by the third party that we never should have been awarded a one star and should have been given the opportunity to appeal.

“We have recently reached out to councillors and inspectors and are being given a further investigation and audit on the week beginning April 4.

“Among the inspection there were elements that did need to be improved which we have attended to and given all of our staff a renewed food hygiene training.”