Rare hamburgers become even rarer

12 April 2012

Council chiefs have been accused of "health and safety madness" after telling a restaurant to stop selling rare-cooked hamburgers.

The Byron chain said it had stopped offering customers the burgers after Westminster council intervened.

The group, founded by restaurateur Tom Byng, has now mounted a legal challenge to the council's "improvement notice" and is set to go to court in the new year. The row centres on concerns from officials over the preparation of the burgers.

The council claims mince that contains meat which comes from nearer the cow's stomach is at risk of carrying contamination if cooked rare.

It has ordered the chain to use only prime cuts for the rare burgers and also directing it to thoroughly clean mincers before using them for prime-cut rare burgers. The chain will now serve all burgers at its 18 locations at least medium rare to "err on the side of caution".

Mr Byng said: "We have very strict controls in place from the supply end right through to the way our hamburgers are cooked. We feel our hamburgers are perfectly safe to eat rare."

A council spokesman insisted Byron had not been banned from selling rare-cooked burgers but instead told to improve its methods after a "routine inspection".

Ben McCormack, editor of restaurant and lifestyle magazine Square Meal, said the move was "ridiculous".

He said: "It literally is health and safety gone mad. Food that's consumed rare or raw - from oysters to steak tartare - is one of the great pleasures of eating out.

"Of course there are health risks, but it should be up to individual diners to decide whether that's something they want to take, not legislating bureaucrats."

"It does nothing for Britain's hard-won reputation as a centre of global gastronomy if visitors can't have their burger served as rare as they dare."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in