A Chinese restaurant in Romford has received the worst possible food hygiene score after a "filthy" kitchen area and "risk of pests" was found.
Empire Chinese Restaurant has been handed a zero out of five rating for its food hygiene following its most recent inspection from Havering Council's environmental health team on May 15.
The eatery in Victoria Road was told that "urgent improvement [is] necessary" overall, as well as in specific areas such as the cleanliness of facilities and the management of food safety.
A Freedom of Information request by the Recorder has now revealed the full food hygiene report for Empire, which highlights a number of failures to meet requirements.
Inspectors found that the business was left open "to risk of pest activity" after managers "failed to implement the recommendations of your pest contractor".
As a result, the restaurant was ordered to "immediately carry out all pest proofing works recommended and ensure your premises are pest free".
The report also described the kitchen as "filthy", with "no separation between raw meat preparation areas and equipment from ready to eat food preparation".
The report said: "The kitchen, food preparation areas and food storage areas were cluttered and filthy.
"You must remove clutter and thoroughly deep clean all areas of the premises and all equipment using hot water and sanitiser.
"Dispose of all contaminated food, food packing and food containers."
Staff were also not washing their hands after handling raw product, inspectors found, and were told to do this, as well as to "wear clean protective clothing".
There were also no records to prove that food is "cooked safely, cooled quickly an reheated thoroughly" at Empire, the report said.
Among the recommendations for the restaurant were that all staff receive a Level 2 Food Hygiene Certificate and allergy training.
According to the report, further action the environmental health team will take is to issue a statutory notice, which is a formal legal document outlining the actions required to fix the food safety breaches.
A spokesperson for Empire said the restaurant closed for three weeks after the zero rating, at which point the environment health team inspected once more and was "very satisfied" with the improvements.
But it is still waiting for a further unannounced visit.
The spokesperson said: "The latest update is, four weeks ago, we paid and arranged an unannounced visit from the EHO [environmental health officer] to improve on the zero rating.
"We have been told that this can only be arranged after the EHO was happy for us to reopen for business.
"So we have been since waiting for around four weeks for the unannounced visit.
"Money, time and effort has been put towards the hygiene of the restaurant to avoid anything like this to happen again.
"I can assure you, we at Empire are very confident that we can achieve a very healthy star rating once we get the unannounced visit."
Havering Council has been contacted for further comment.
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