INSPECTORS found bird excrement on a rafter from which hams were hanging, when they visited a restaurant in York city centre.

The grim find was in a storage garage for the Italian restaurant Il Paradiso del Cibo in Walmgate.

York Press: Paolo Silesu, proprietor of Il Paradiso del Cibo, with his alter ego portrait painted by a York artist, Argentinian-born Andres Jaroslavsky

At York Magistrates Court today, the restaurant's owner Paolo Silesu, pictured above, admitted 9 offences and was fined £14,626 including costs.

The restaurant name translates as Food Paradise, but was given a rating of 0/5 in the "scores on the doors" scheme.

This is the second time Silesu has been convicted of bad food hygiene.

Jan Catchpole, for City of York Council, said a food inspector gave the restaurant a zero rating when he found hams hanging from a rafter with bird droppings.

During a routine inspection in December 2013, an inspector also found:

  • A fly catcher left full of dead flies for weeks
  • Dirty ceilings
  • Working surfaces and walls in poor repair
  • Cross-contamination risks from raw and prepared food stored near each other
  • Incorrectly stored utensils
  • Poor lighting in a food storeroom and preparation area
  • Other hygiene problems

Despite the council serving three improvement notices, some problems were not corrected when the inspector returned two months later and again six months later.

Its hygiene rating in June 2014 was 2 out of 5.

Matthew Collins, for owner Paolo Silesu, said in court today that he had brought in food safety experts and spent thousands of pounds improving the restaurant, including closing it for a week last month for structural work so it met food hygiene regulations.

York Press: The premises that scored zero ratings for food hygiene

Silesu, of Walmgate, York, pleaded guilty to four breaches of food hygiene regulations on December 6, 2013, three of failure to comply with an improvement notice by February 7, 2014, and two of failure to comply with an improvement notice on June 20, 2014. The offences related to the restaurant's kitchen and storage room in Dixon's Yard.

York magistrates fined him £12,000 and ordered him to pay £2,506.08 prosecution costs with a £120 statutory surcharge.

He said afterwards he was considering an appeal.

York Press:

The restaurant, pictured in 2008

Outside court, Silesu's food safety consultant James King said the kitchen he saw on January 27 this year "bore no relationship to the kitchen that was presented in court by the prosecution." He added: "The food safety of the business is very high."

In 2007, Silesu received a six-month conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs after he admitted three breaches of food hygiene regulations and three failures to comply with improvement notices in 2005.

A council spokesman said the restaurant's hygiene rating will be reviewed at its next routine inspection.