186 Du Cane Road, London W12 0BJ Company 17428571 Method, not a rating
Temperatures, probes and logs
Four numbers govern this counter and a fifth band is the one nothing is kept in. Below is the ladder they sit on, how each is measured rather than assumed, and the books that hold the readings once they have been taken. Everything here is written in the present tense of method, because method is what a counter can set out before it opens.
The ladder
What each number is forA1
- −18 °C
- The freezer, where retarded dough and fruit wait. A reading at open and at close.
- 1 °C to 4 °C
- The chilled deck and the milk fridge. 8 °C is the ceiling, not the aim.
- 63 °C
- Hot holding. Proved with the probe, not read off the cabinet dial.
- 70 °C
- Reheating, held for two minutes at the centre. Once only, never twice.
- 75 °C
- A cooked core, held for thirty seconds, at the centre of the deepest item.
The band between 8 °C and 63 °C is a working space, not a holding space. Food crosses it on the bench and is put back into a climate at the other end. Cold food on display out of refrigeration has four hours, once; hot food below 63 °C has two, once. Both clocks are written on the tray card the moment they start, because a clock nobody wrote down has already run out.
The probe, and proving it
A probe that has never been checked is an opinion with a display on it. This one is checked in two fixed points: a slush of crushed ice and water, which reads zero, and water at a rolling boil, which reads one hundred. A reading more than one degree out at either point takes the probe out of service, and there is a second probe in the drawer for exactly that morning.
Between uses the stem is wiped with a fresh sanitising wipe, and it goes into the centre of an item rather than near a tray edge, where the metal lies about the temperature. The reading is written as a number. A tick in a box records that somebody held a probe, which is not the same information.
The books behind the counter
| Log | Filled | Carries | Kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening check | Before the door is unlocked | Deck, freezer and milk fridge readings; cabinet brought up empty; a walk of the run | Twelve months |
| Bake sheet | At the end of each bake | Time, tray count, probe reading at the core, initials | Twelve months |
| Hot cabinet log | On loading and twice a day | Probe reading, the time an item went in, any two-hour clock started | Twelve months |
| Delivery record | As a delivery is taken in | Supplier, time, chilled and frozen temperatures at the door, anything refused | Twelve months |
| Probe calibration | Weekly, and after a drop | Ice point, boiling point, pass or withdrawal | Twelve months |
| Cleaning schedule | As each task is done | Task, frequency, initials against the line | Twelve months |
| Withdrawal count | At close | Item and number taken off the run before food waste | Twelve months |
| Waste transfer notes | On each collection | Carrier, waste description, where it went | Two years, as the law requires |
The cleaning schedule, by frequency
A cleaning schedule written by room is a schedule nobody finishes. This one is written by frequency, so a person on a shift can see what their shift owes without reading the whole document.
- Between uses. Probe stem, milk jug, ice scoop handle, the bench where a filling was built, tongs, and any board that has met fruit.
- Daily. Deck glass inside and out, dome and its crumb tray, hot cabinet shelves, the ice well emptied and washed, bin lids, the floor behind the run, hand-wash basin and the sink the probe is calibrated in.
- Weekly. Under the deck and the oven, the oven seals, the grinder hopper and chute, syrup pumps stripped and soaked, shelving in the dry store, the back of the fridge gasket, and the bin store itself.
- Monthly. Condenser grilles, extraction filters, the drain run under the sink, a full defrost of the freezer, and a pest walk with the report filed whether or not anything was found.
Cooling is the stage most often got wrong, so it has its own line: from 63 °C down to 8 °C inside ninety minutes, in a shallow tray on the rack and never in the deck, which is a holding cabinet and not a chiller. Reheating happens once, to 70 °C held for two minutes. Anything that has been reheated and not sold is withdrawn; there is no second reheat on this counter.
Food waste leaves in its own stream, separate from dry recycling and from general waste, and used cooking oil is collected by a registered carrier whose transfer note is filed with the rest. The bin store is on the schedule above because a bin store is where a pest problem is decided, weeks before anything is seen indoors.
There is no food hygiene rating on this site. A rating is awarded by the local authority after an inspection, and until the business is registered with the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham — which happens at least twenty-eight days before the door opens — and inspected, there is nothing to publish. Anything printed here that looked like a rating would be an invention, so the method above is printed instead.