Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa butcher's closes after inspectors find mouldy carcasses and mouse droppings

[HuckleB]

Source: The Independent

Jamie Oliver’s butcher’s shop was forced to temporarily close after public health inspectors found serious hygiene problems, including mouse droppings and mouldy carcasses.

The chef’s shop - Barbecoa, which supplies its expensive upstairs restaurant with meat - closed its doors for 24 hours after public health officers rated it only one out of five in January, with inspection notes reading “major improvement necessary”. The branch is located near St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The assessment found a “heavy presence” of mouse droppings; out-of-date oxtail, onglet, Spanish pork, marrow bone and wagyu beef; hanging carcasses with mould growing on them; and dirty slicers and vacuum packers, according to a Times report. Deboned chicken breasts had been deboned from their box, then vacuum packed and relabelled with a date set for a week later.

Inspectors also found unclean fridge door handles, inadequate staff washing facilities, poor lighting and damaged flooring. The butcher’s was one of 19 out of 1,659 food outlets in the City of London to receive an “A hazardous” rating from the City of London Corporation - A being the worst on the A – E scale.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jamie-olivers-barbecoa-butchers-closes-after-inspectors-find-mouldy-carcasses-and-mouse-droppings-9342410.html

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I don't believe in karma, but sometimes it seems real. If you act holier than thou, you're going get caught out.

[jollyreaper2112]

1. Wow

This is the cliche, right? High end restaurants with deplorable sanitation. Honestly, I don't get it. The only thing that makes sense is that people like this are actors and their stage is the kitchen rather than the theater. They don't care about how the nuts and bolts are working.

A real chef would be hands-on and never run an outfit bigger than he can manage. No need to micro-manage but certainly be sufficiently present to know when work that's been delegated is being handled poorly.

[HuckleB]

2. I think you're right.

What makes this worse is all the preaching the guy does about "real food," etc... If you're going to be attacking others, you have to keep your house clean.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Bourguignon du merde

Bon appétit!

[Sunlei]

4. Now the "media personality" will blame 'the help'.

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. Of course this has about zero to do with Oliver himself or his important quest for

people to wake up to the excesses of the Western diet.

[HuckleB]

6. His quest is self important.

I find it to be disingenuous, and this speaks to that.

[MADem]

13. Zero to do with Oliver hmself? HUH?

He OWNS the shop.

It supplies HIS restaurant.

I guess personal responsibility for something HE owns. in the food chain that supplies HIS customers is ... optional?

If they eat his moldy shit, they might not "wake up" at all....

[gvstn]

7. I'm guessing he has

More than one "branch" of that meat shop. You are right that he shouldn't let his operation get any bigger than he can handle supervising. A meat shop that sells bad meat doesn't usually last long. No self-respecting owner would allow the described conditions. You don't control excess inventory by trying to sell bad food, you get someone who can adjust the inventory according to sales.

I have to say I don't know if it was staged (I know it was staged but to what degree) but I remember a Ramsey show where the restaurant he was helping was only a block or two from one he owned. He took the owner to his restaurant to show him how it should be done. Of course it was immaculate but it was the way the staff would instinctively wipe down an oven handle when walking by or take similar actions really made you think that Ramsey's staff had had cleanliness drilled into their collective consciousness.

[HuckleB]

8. I do think a lot of that stuff is staged.

I also think most restaurant employees work their butts off to keep things clean and healthy. (Well, it's the restaurant biz. Healthy is relative.) Still, Oliver is just a bit too over the top in his preaching, and, so getting caught on something like this is quite the comedown.

[benld74]

9. Perhaps its the start of yet another new fad?,,,

There are those who drink coffee made from beans that have been shat by a small primate I hear,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[HuckleB]

10. All right, fine. You win post of the day, even if you are a Cardinals fan.

[jmowreader]

11. It's actually a little weasel-like animal called an Asian Palm Civet

[Ikonoklast]

14. TIL that Eric Cantor is an Asian Palm Civet.

[jmowreader]

17. Don't insult Asian Palm Civets that way

Asian Palm Civets provide a valuable service. Eric Cantor, not so much.

[MADem]

12. EWWwwwww....and I'll bet he was charging plenty for that moldy meat! nt

[sir pball]

15. While the filth is unacceptable, moldy stinky half-rotten meat is entirely OK

I've been in a couple of dry-aging rooms at very high-end operations and it's literally nauseating - the smell is somewhere between blue cheese and roadkill, the meat is a zombie grey color, sometimes even has a rainbow of mold covering it. But once you trim away the decomposed bits..

[cynzke]

16. You are correct!

The is how beef is acceptably aged and it does get moldy. My mother in law worked in the meat department of a Midwestern supermarket chain. The mold is part of the aging process and then cut off/scrapped off before wrapped and stocked in the sales area.