Press Up outlet closed by rodent problem, and ‘unfit food’ issue shuts Allta supply kitchen

Rodent infestation in a kitchen and serious breaches of food hygiene regulations have resulted in closure orders being served on two high-profile restaurant brands.

Press Up Eats, a takeaway and dine-in restaurant in Cork city; and a food preparation kitchen used by Allta, which currently operates Allta Winter House in Trinity Street car park in Dublin 2, were among seven premises served with closure orders last month, for breaches of food safety legislation.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said on Tuesday that an order was served under the FSAI Act, 1998 closing Press Up Eats, 4-5 South Main Street, Cork. “Mouse droppings were present in several locations in the kitchen, including “behind and under service fridges, storage shelving and cooking equipment,” the inspector noted. “Evidence of pest nesting and significant accumulations of mice droppings was noted in a wall panel in the kitchen next to the wash hand basin.”

Press Up Eats is part of the Press Up hospitality group which owns and runs restaurants, hotels and bars in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The Press Up Eats venues, in Temple Bar and Mount Merrion in Dublin, as well as Cork city, bring together several of the group’s food brands under one roof. The Cork city branch operates dine-in, collection and takeaway from its Coo Coo Indian food, Rice Chinese food and Double 8 dumpling menus.

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A spokesperson for Press Up said: “This was an isolated incident because of work going on in the neighbouring building. It was a once off incident that has never happened before in any [Press Up] premises.” The restaurant has since reopened.

A closure order was also served under the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020, on Allta at Liffey Trust Centre, 117-126 Sheriff Street Upper, Dublin 1. The Allta Winter House restaurant opened in November 2021, on the fifth floor of the Trinity Street car park in Dublin 2, following its move from a summer residency at Slane Castle in Co Meath. A spokesperson for the restaurant described the premises served with the closure order as “ a satellite space”.

The inspector’s report, based on inspections on March 8th and February 24th, 2022, outlined evidence of non-compliance with legislation in four areas: Unfit food; training and food safety culture; hazard analysis and critical control points, and registration and approval of establishments.

Among the specific infringements listed, “foods were being stored for undefined and excessively long periods of time (eg smoked butter produced 19/10/21) with no documented or validated food preservation techniques applied.” A vacuum packer was being used for raw and cooked food, “eg pork belly and cooked food eg miso butter ... leading to likely contamination of foods with pathogenic bacteria rendering the food unfit.”

Inappropriate food safety

The report also noted issues with food safety protocols at the premises. “There was no evidence of an appropriate food safety culture within the food business, or commitment by management to the safe production of food.”

Further evidence of non-compliance included failure to present required documentation. “There were no documented Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) based food safety management procedures or associated records available for inspection for activities such as smoking foods, cooking in hot box, miso butter production.”

In relation to registration and approval of premises, the report noted, “The establishment being used by the food business operator has not been approved by the competent authority for the activities taking place, specifically the preparation and handling of foodstuffs of animal origin. There was evidence of preparation and handling of foodstuffs of animal origin, namely, processing and handling of raw unprocessed meat for supply to other establishments at the time of inspections.”

Chef and restaurateur Niall Davidson, who is named on the closure order for Allta at Liffey Trust Centre, confirmed that food present at the time of the inspections had been thrown away, and that the premises has now been closed down.

A statement issued on behalf of Davidson and Hugh Higgins of Table 21 Restaurants Ltd said: “The kitchen at Liffey Trust had only been in partial use this year and we were in the process of closing the space down. Regardless, it was operating, and we take full responsibility for the lack of due diligence, inadequate staff training at this location for our team members, the lack of a second vac pac machine, batch coding of our fermented produce and shelf life testing of products such as smoked butter.

“At our pop-up location at Trinity Car Park, we have been thoroughly inspected and fully comply with all environmental health procedures and requirements. We continue to work closely with our environmental health officer and Hygiene Management System consultants to run our restaurant to the highest possible level and we thank the environmental health officer  for highlighting these points to us and helping us to put practices in place to rectify all issues.”