Chefs defy health inspectors over rare meat The Food Standards Agency (FSA) states that all poultry, as well as liver and offal, should be cooked until no pink remains. The advice is only guidance; the legal requirement is for restaurateurs to ensure their food is safe. But there are warnings in the industry that the guidelines are increasingly being raised by environmental health officers during restaurant inspections and that many chefs feel pressured to comply. Michael Caines, a chef with two Michelin stars for his restaurant at Gidleigh Park, on Dartmoor, said: "It is ridiculous, to be quite frank. We are in a Draconian state where we are being told by everybody what to do because people don't understand what it is we're doing. He added: "If you've got a nice piece of fresh liver, it is handled correctly and you are cooking it on the outside, if it is served medium rare on the outside I don't see why that would be a risk to anyone. Equally the customer has a right to choose. Richard Turner, head chef of Hawksmoor, the steak restaurants in central London, said: "Westminster Council have told us we can no longer serve our burgers rare, which is possibly right. But for meats that aren't played around with, as long as it is from a good source, it is ridiculous to say you cannot eat it rare. To say we could not cook duck medium rare would be ridiculous - we have been doing it for 20 years now. If they tried to tell us we could not serve steak rare we would probably have to go to court - we would lose our business. Prue Leith, the cook and broadcaster, said the guidelines had been designed for factories and fast-food chains, and were not practical for smaller restaurants. [The inspectors] are not at all interested in whether you are actually going to give anybody food poisoning. They just dash around making rules," she said. If you have a really good chef, of course he is going to be good about making sure he is not poisoning anybody. Of course, he will be highly aware of hygiene and how bugs grow. Almost always when there is a food poisoning scandal, the reason is simple hygiene rules. People have left food sitting in a warm kitchen for four hours or have used the same knife - simple stuff. Leith is concerned that restaurateurs may soon have to stop offering rare meat entirely. "There is a lot of enforcement," she said. If you have environmental health officers who have to make an impression back at the office, that is what they will go and do. I can see a day when you have to go to France to get a rare steak. The same for pink duck breasts, liver or kidneys. There are fears the situation could get worse for restaurateurs as Brussels officials are currently redrafting some food safety laws. Leith is worried restaurants may be forced to start listing ingredient quantities and calorie counts. I fear what the next step will be. It would lead to standardisation," she said. Restaurants are about imagination and inventing things on the spot. How are you expected to check absolutely everything? The enforcement of regulations was highlighted earlier this summer, when Marcus Wareing, the two-star Michelin chef, scored just one out of five for kitchen hygiene, failing a routine inspection. The chef, who runs a restaurant at London's five-star hotel The Berkeley, was warned of E.coli risks. Andrew Wadge, chief scientist at the FSA, said: "While I love eating out and enjoy a rare steak as much as the next person, I also accept that there is a serious risk from eating some undercooked foods. We don't make up cooking times to frustrate creativity in the kitchen. He added: "I think the FSA and local authorities get the balance right between letting chefs do their jobs and protecting public health."