French restaurant in Northampton gains five-star food hygiene rating after improving from low grading earlier this year

A French restaurant which was given one of the worst food hygiene ratings earlier this year has now improved significantly and has been graded as five-star at a re-inspection.

Cafe Marseille in Sheep Street was visited by Northampton Borough Council inspectors in January, where downfalls were found surrounding the ‘management of food safety’.

Sergiu Andrievschi, owner of the restaurant, disputed the rating as he said it was down to a ‘misunderstanding around paperwork’, however his official appeal was received too late.

Following the re-inspection, which took place on December 4, the eatery was rated ‘good’ in all three categories including ‘hygienic food handling’, ‘cleanliness and condition’ and ‘management of food safety’, leading to a five-star rating.

The owner was pleased to receive the best rating possible, which is an improvement from the rating prior to the inspection earlier this year, as the restaurant previously had a three-star rating.

Mr Andrievschi said: “The chef at the time of the earlier rating did not speak much English and he misunderstood the papers.

“Being clean is not enough to get five stars; there is a lot of paperwork to be done and the chef at the time got mixed up.

“This time we made sure we have new staff and new management and now we have five stars.

“We now want to get the customers’ trust back.

“We have improved what was recommended but not necessary by the inspectors. We did all that and extra.

“It was a big challenge but we got there.”

As the restaurant has now got a high food hygiene rating, it will go back to the usual inspection frequency of between every two and three years.

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