A CELEBRITY chef Antony Worrall Thompson's Oxfordshire restaurant has been given a damning report by hygiene inspectors over mouldy containers and risk of contamination.

The Greyhound in Peppard Common, near Henley, was given a two-out-of-five-star rating after an assessment by the Food Standards Agency.

Inspectors singled out the danger of cross-contamination and the storage of high risk food at room temperature. But its manager said the inspection was "too harsh".

Mr Worrall Thompson has appeared on TV shows such as Ready Steady Cook and Saturday Kitchen, and starred in the second series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

He has described The Greyhound as the 'perfect local.'
The restaurant claims to be a destination for high quality food and has a 4.5 star ranking on TripAdvisor. 

Main courses at The Greyhound range from £20-£27 and starters up to £13. 

The inspection report released to the Oxford Mail through a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, states: "Raw and ready to eat boards were placed close to each other during service; the yellow board close to the blue board near the fryers.

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It said effort must be made to ensure that "raw food is prepared away from ready-to-eat food to prevent cross contamination".

It added: "It was good to see vacuum pack pouches are stored in boxes to prevent contamination. However raw and ready-to-eat pouches were stored together. Pouches for raw and RTE foods should be stored separately."

With regard to the storage of food, it said: "You were storing high risk foods (salads and dressings) at room temperature during service; you would then refrigerate remaining food and bring it out to store at room temperature again during the next service.

"You must ensure high risk food is stored at room temperature only once and for a maximum of four hours, after which time it must either be disposed of or refrigerated until sold, served or thrown away.

"It must not be stored at room temperature again."

The report also lists a number of pieces of equipment that were in need of cleaning which included mouldy storage containers, trays below the cooking preparation area and a tray holding ramekin dishes.

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But the manager of The Greyhound has since hit back at the rating, saying that the inspection was too 'harsh'.

He said: "Personally, I thought it was really harsh and we will be calling them back in, in a couple of days.

"We felt it was nothing that would affect the hygiene of the food."

"We are making the improvements that they suggested and everything has been addressed."

Mr Worrall Thompson's career hit a set back in 2012 when he received a police caution for shoplifting items, including wine and cheese, from the Henley branch of Tesco on five occasions.