To not want to eat food from restaurants, cafés or take always that have less than a five star hygiene rating?

[HangingBasketCase]

Since it's become compulsory to display the hygiene ratings in windows I've found myself becoming more and more choosy about where I eat. I have relatives who work in the catering industry and run a pretty successful business, they have five stars. According to them it's not hard to get the perfect rating, most of it's basic common sense, anyone falling short is just being lax and sloppy.

I used to eat fairly regularly at pub place near my home, it's a very busy chain place but it's only got a 4 star hygiene rating and I'm avoiding it now. I can't understand how they fell short when my local backstreet takeaway has managed to get 5 stars? Despite having the signs displayed everywhere the pub is always packed with families. I don't get it?

I'm not particularly anal about food, but I do want to eat somewhere in the knowledge that the food has been prepared to a high standard of hygiene.

YANBU

I love this website

YANBU when it is your choice but id be a bit if I invited you out for, say, a birthday meal abd you declined based in the fact that the place Id chosen had four stars.

Depends on the reasons. Sometimes it's just missing paperwork.

Well, kind of, but the star rating is mostly on paperwork and stuff AFAIK. There's nothing to stop the chef coming in with a cold and sneezing in your salad. Even if they know they shouldn't.

YABU. A friend who runs a catering business told me that if you don't do the correct paperwork then you can't do better than a 3.

Our local Indian takeway has a 1 rating, but we'd been eating there for years before we found out. Never made me ill and the food is delicious. Doesn't bother me too much.

I'm not that fussed to be honest,and I work in a cafe. I know how easy it is to drop points for ridiculous nit picky stuff.

OP you would never be able ti eat in the Rover Return!

Your five star place could easily have gone downhill since it got its stars.. how would you know unless you did a kitchen inspection every time you ate there.. equally the four star place could have had a bigger clean up since too

We do have a 5 star rating this time but dropped last time due to petty paperwork issues.

I always think the state of the toilets is as good an indication as any.

Sorry, but no way would I eat anything from somewhere that only has a 1 star rating, that's fucking disgusting! They can't even blame lost paperwork for that.

Usual, I am now prowling around mumsnet...

I absolutely will NOT eat anywhere with cockroaches. Unless I am in Greece. Then it seems ok.

Dcs school currently has a 2. They have packed lunches....

There's nothing to stop the chef coming in with a cold and sneezing in your salad.

I wish you hadn't said that, Boulevard!

Blimey. I must be a mega cootie-ridden uber slut because I just don't care about this kind of thing! I don't ever look for ratings - didn't know they existed tbh! Oh well. I am actively practising a more serene less stressed way of existing and see no reason to change the status quo for hygiene ratings!

My next door neighbour has only two stars out of five on her hygiene certificate. She can't have any more as the kitchen on the premises has a loo directly off it. She doesn't actually use the kitchen, it's part of the maisonette flat that came attached to the building when she took the tenancy. The business is actually one of those drop-in paint your own ceramics places and the food and drink is all teas and coffees served out of an urn and cakes (home made at her own house in a village a couple of miles out), so the kitchen doesn't come into use at all. The crockery gets washed up at the end of the day in a little room on a different floor. All very daft and a fine example of why one-size-fits-all tick boxing doesn't work.

Some interesting comment here. I think the reason I'm so touchy is due to me being made very ill by the food I ate at a Carvary before the ratings came in. The food was actually really delicious, but I've never been so ill afterwards, the people I was with also had the same thing which is how we knew we had food poisoning.

yanbu even though I eat at 4 star places as well.
anything below can't be due to misding paperwork imo.

Yanbu imo, but then I don't eat any food I haven't prepared myself, I really am anal about what I eat.

YAB a bit U

My DP has 4 stars for his kitchen, he would have five but it's something to do with it not being a purpose built kitchen, it's a converted old building. It's immaculate (and fully fitted out) and he's the most hygienic-minded person I know, but he can't get a 5 in his premises for this reason.

I'd draw the line at 3 personally.

Did you report the food poisoning to environmental health?

I had campylobacter once and env health investigated (and did fuck all) after eating at a hotel in Chester. I honestly thought I was going to die.

No because it was in another town that we were not familiar with and we couldn't remember the name of the place. I did go back a while after though and it had closed down.

I'm really pleased that in Wales it's compulsory to have the rating displayed in a prominent place. I don't look up the ratings of places I eat before going there but I would certainly walk away if the place had a 1, 2 or possibly even 3.