About

Why this site exists

Every food business in the United Kingdom has a Food Standards Agency hygiene rating. The data has been public open data for years. And yet, if you walk past a dodgy takeaway on a Tuesday night, you have no easy way to check its score before the kebab hits your plate.

The window sticker scheme was meant to solve that. It didn’t. In England, displaying the rating is voluntary — and predictably, the venues that got a 0 or a 1 don’t display it.

We built RatingCafe to close that gap. No vote-rigging, no paid placements, no opinion editorial masquerading as ratings. Just the FSA’s own data, surfaced honestly and made searchable.

Editorial

All written content is edited by James Thornton, a food safety and regulatory journalist with a focus on the UK hospitality sector. Our editorial process separates data (FSA-sourced, never modified) from analysis (our own, clearly labelled).

What’s next

• Phase 1 (live) — UK venue search, city pages, chain analysis, worst-rated lists.
• Phase 2 (coming) — historical inspection trends, hygiene score evolution graphs, owner notification for corrections.
• Phase 3 (later) — Europe expansion, starting with France, Germany and Ireland.

Contact

General: hello@ratingcafe.cafe
Press: same address, put PRESS in the subject line.