A restaurant in Liverpool owned by Gino D'Acampo has been slapped with a one-star hygiene rating.
The celebrity chef's second restaurant in the city, located in the INNSiDE hotel - which opened in 2021 - was inspected on 17 January, and food safety officials were clearly less than impressed by what they saw.
The Food Standards Agency website shows that the restaurant was given a one-star rating, indicating that 'major improvement' is necessary.
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A spokesperson for Gino D'Acampo Hotels and Leisure said told the Liverpool Echo: "We're extremely disappointed with this rating and have taken immediate action to address the points raised.
"Our expert consultants have since conducted a robust audit and were satisfied that corrective measures have been met.
"A re-inspection has already been invited and we are confident of seeing a return to higher scores in line with our sibling restaurants."
Last January, D'Acampo took to social media to 'set the record straight' following reports his My Pasta Bar chain had gone into liquidation.
The Italian TV chef said he had returned from holiday to find a lot of 'cr*p' in the press about his business struggles.
On Instagram, the 46-year-old admitted that My Pasta Bar had indeed gone into liquidation, but he was keen to highlight that this enterprise was completely separate from his restaurant business, which he said is 'thriving'.
Addressing his 1.5 million followers, he said: "We just came back from the island of Sardinia, I was there with a family, and when I got back I saw a lot of cr*p about my restaurant. Apparently, my restaurant are [sic] into liquidation.
"Now, I don't usually do stuff like this, but I thought, let me set the record straight here.
"About 10 years ago, I opened a business called Pasta Bar, which is serving Italian food very fast in the centre of London, three little shops.
"And we tried for 10 years, and then Covid came around and I thought, you know what, we had to close.
"There was no point to pursue with the idea, which, by the way, I absolutely love and I will continue with that with another business."
Gino is of course just one of countless restaurateurs across the globe to have been hit hard by the pandemic, with lockdown restrictions having a devastating impact upon the hospitality industry.
Fortunately for the This Morning regular his other businesses appear to have weathered the storm.
He continued: "So the Pasta Bar business has got nothing to do with my restaurant business, with my import business, or any other business that I do, it's a standalone business going into liquidation.
"We have to move on, this is what business is all about - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
"Now, let’s talk about the restaurant business, which is growing really, really well, so much so that this year alone, I'm going to be opening three mega sites and one I'm going to be opening in Italy!"
Topics: UK News, Food And Drink, Celebrity
Jake Massey