A mystery complaint
An Environmental Health Officer called three weeks ago. Nice chap. Hadn't seen him before. Said he'd eaten in the restaurant several times and thoroughly enjoyed it. He'd had a letter of complaint from two customers of ours.
It was mid-morning and warm so we sat over coffee in the courtyard and chatted.
Apparently the couple complaining had been for dinner the previous Saturday. On Saturday nights we offer a table d'hôte menu for £18.50 - three courses and coffee.
One of the starter items is our popular self-service hors d'oeuvre table. This is a large choice of all kinds of starter items - smoked fish, pâtés, egg mayonnaise, salads and so on - displayed on a long buffet table in the centre of the restaurant.
The couple wrote that the mayonnaise with one of the items had tasted "warm". They were both ill in the night. They expressed surprise that such a display of food, in the heat of July, was not kept refrigerated.
The EHO asked how we stored and displayed items for the table. We told him they were prepared during the day, kept in a commercial walk-in cold room and brought out by the restaurant staff at 7pm.
He then mentioned the various hygiene requirements covering holding temperatures and times of display, etc.
Four years ago we had thought about a cold display for the hors d'oeuvre. We looked at several that wouldn't have looked out of place in a works canteen but lacked something aesthetically.
The best we saw was Italian and circular. It moved slowly round and round like a gentle carousel. It looked very nice. It was a very nice £7,000. We decided to stick with two six-foot tables and a decent length of skirting.
Then he asked us what mayonnaise we used. We've always made our own.
"Well," he said, "I strongly recommend you change to a bought mayonnaise and preferably one that doesn't require refrigeration." He also went on to suggest we consider a refrigerated unit for the hors d'oeuvre.
How can it be that an EHO is able to act on the contents of one such letter and force a restaurateur to agree to such "strong recommendations"? Who can prove that the customers' illness was down to our food? But the real surprise was to follow.
"By the way," we asked, "we know in this sort of situation you can't reveal the name of the customers who wrote to you, but can you give us an indication as to where they live? Did they say they were regulars of ours? Any clues?"
He smiled. "That's the strange thing," he replied "the writer of the letter didn't sign it or give an address. So I can't even let him know the outcome of his complaint."
We were stunned.
A member of the public, who we don't think we know, and who we may never see again in our restaurant, has anonymously forced us to stop using home-made mayonnaise.
So now we're waiting for the first customer to complain about the taste of shop-bought mayonnaise.
And looking for the odd £7,000.
