FAMILY-RUN Caribbean restaurant and takeaway Taste of Jamaica has achieved a five-star hygiene rating after only receiving a one-star rating in last year.

Taste of Jamaica is a family run business on Cowley Road in Littlemore.

The restaurant was first opened in 2010 by Aaron and Saudia Hind. Now, still growing strong, the restaurant offers more than 50 authentic Caribbean dishes and provides food for big events such as weddings, funerals, and parties.

On Monday, November 2, the Caribbean restaurant achieved a five-star hygiene rating after being inspected by Oxford City Council.

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The restaurant was given a good rating for food hygiene and safety, structural compliance, and confidence in management.

However, the restaurant has not always passed its hygiene inspections with flying colours.

In February 2019, Taste of Jamaica was given a one-star hygiene rating and was told that major improvements were needed.

In that report, the inspectors marked both 'food hygiene and safety' and 'structural compliance' as ‘fair’.

The confidence in management was ranked as ‘little’ suggesting the inspectors saw no food management safety system and poor records.

This year, the business has turned itself around, now scoring the highest food hygiene rating.

Restaurant owner Saudia Hind said she was happy with the result and said the previous low score was a result of different people running the restaurant.

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Ms Hind replaced the people who ran the restaurant as soon as she received the bad hygiene rating, and as a result 2020 has been a positive year for the business.

She said: “Once we had that score, I thought no, that is the lowest of the low, we need to stop. That is not a true reflection of what the restaurant is really like.

“People were making nasty comments, asking how we could trade on Just Eat with a score of one, but we do serve clean, good food. On the day the inspectors turned up it was just neglected. So, we pressed rewind and started again.”

The restaurant has been refurbished and Ms Hind is looking forward to getting the business back to normal after Covid restrictions ease. However, business for the Caribbean restaurant is doing well.