Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms patron Gareth Ward has said his standards at the two Michelin starred Ceredigion eatery ‘never drop below’ 100 percent following the one-star rating
A two-time Michelin-starred chef has hit back at food safety officials after his restaurant was handed the Food Standard Agency’s lowest rating.
The FSA has awarded the nearly £500 per head Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms, in Ceredigion, Wales, a one star rating after food safety officers visited the restaurant on November 5 last year. The rating, which is the lowest of five the agency can award, signals the need for “major improvement”, and would would need to be secured to the restaurant’s frontage, in the vicinity of its Michelin stars.
Its chef patron has shrugged off the agency’s findings, however, arguing its standards are at the “highest in the world “, as his restaurant does “something different”.
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Following the news, Gareth Ward, a top-billed chef who has starred on MasterChef: The Professionals, said his restaurant buys in “the best ingredients from around the world”, a lot of which he said is served raw. His use of raw ingredients is what inspectors had concentrated on, he added.
Mr Ward said: “I’m buying sashimi-grade fish from Japan and they’re questioning, ‘well, we don’t know the water, so how do we know it’s sashimi grade?’
“Well, it is sashimi grade, this stuff’s eaten raw all over the world and, just because our rules don’t fit their rules, they’re questioning it.” The chef added that the inspectors had also scrutinised some of his aged ingredients during the visit, accusing them of not liking “the idea of ageing stuff”.
He said: “I’ve got a salt chamber for ageing fish but they obviously don’t like the idea of ageing stuff.” Inspection results published on the FSA’s site state the restaurant’s food safety management required “major improvement”.
The report added that cleanliness and facility condition also needed improving, while it rated “hygenic food handling” as “generally satisfactory”. While he admitted inspectors were “not 100 percent wrong” in the rating, and that “some of our paperwork wasn’t right”, Mr Ward said he was not embarrassed or upset, and promised his restaurant has just done “something different”.
Unashamed, he added that he wouldn’t sit down and agonise over the FSA’s decision, adding: “I’m not embarrassed by it, I’m not upset by it.”
“The people in life that push the hardest and think outside the box and do something different will always have to deal with this kind of stuff. My standards never drop below 100%. I’m not at all ashamed but I am disappointed. I’m not sat here thinking ‘oh my god, I’m embarrassed, I’ve done something wrong’, because we haven’t. What we have done is something different.”
Ynshir is Wales’ only twin-starred Michelin restaurant, and is described as a “truly unique experience” in the vaunted food guide, which highlights Mr Ward’s involvement in what it calls a “culinary journey”.
The guide says: “The evening starts early, which gives chef-owner Gareth Ward five hours to take diners on a playful culinary journey around the globe. He has a particular reverence for Japanese cuisine, with sashimi and A5 Wagyu beef likely to appear on the surprise menu of around 30 vibrant servings, all using outstanding produce prepared with superb craft.”
