An award-winning Folkestone, UK, restaurant run by celebrity chef Mark Sergeant has been given a low food hygiene rating.

Inspectors discovered ‘unsafe’ cooking procedures at Rocksalt, in Folkestone Harbour and the top eatery was told ‘improvement is necessary’.

Callum Wilson of Kent Live reports the damning Environmental Health report, inspectors said diners were at risk of food poisoning.

The restaurant, which has previously received rave reviews, has now had its five star rating taken away and replaced with the much lower rating ‘requires improvement’.

A Shepway District Council environmental health officer took the perfect score away after finding a ‘high risk’ chicken liver was undercooked.

The officer said: “I noted some cooking procedures that could lead to an unsafe product. For example: chicken livers maybe cooked “medium”.

“Chicken liver pate is cooked in the combi-oven. Core temperature is monitored using a probe and the product is considered cooked when it reaches 70 C.

“The time temperature combination for thorough cooking is 70C held for 2 minutes.”

In a warning to the restaurant, the officer said: “Please ensure chicken products are thoroughly cooked (as per your HACCP procedure for high risk products)”.

Rocksalt is co-owned by celebrity chef Mark Sargeant and Josh DeHaan and opened in 2011.

No one at the restaurant was available for comment.

However, a post appeared on the Rocksalt website saying: “We have requested a revisit and have addressed the single cooking technique deemed incorrect.

“We have urgently retrained all staff to our correct procedure.”