A trendy restaurant in Brisbane’s inner city which has been a magnet for rock ‘n’ roll types has admitted live cockroaches were running around its kitchen after pleading guilty to breaching food safety laws.

French-Vietnamese restaurant Libertine in The Barracks on Petrie Terrace was prosecuted in the Brisbane Magistrates Court and on February 5, admitted to eight breaches of food health laws in court that day.

The company, owned by Andrew Baturo, was fined $15,000.

Brisbane City Council’s Acting enforcement coordination manager Stephen Thomson told Magistrate Suzette Coates that he found more than a dozen live cockroaches and many more dead ones in 12 locations around the kitchen and pantry when he inspected on July 14, 2014.

He found “live cockroaches inside the drinking straws” kept under the stainless steel bench located on the right hand side of the kitchen near the door leading from the kitchen to the dining area.

Mr Thomson also found a dead cockroach inside a food preparation fridge, a live cockroach on the door steal of another fridge and a live adult cockroach on wall of the dry storage area.