A bustling Oxford city centre café has been hit with a low food hygiene rating.

The Spires Cafe in Gloucester Green is a favourite among residents and tourists alike but the coffee shop failed to impress inspectors.

Oxford City Council’s Environmental Health team visited the premises on Monday, January 22, and found that “improvement was necessary”.

This caused The Spires Cafe to receive a low two-out-of-five hygiene score from the inspectors who highlighted one major cause of concern.

The report stated that improvement was “necessary” regarding the business’ hygienic handling of food including preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage.

Aside from this problem which cost the café more than half the stars available, the coffee shop passed on the rest of the report’s criteria.

The cleanliness and condition of facilities and building were deemed to be “generally satisfactory” by the visiting inspectors on the day.

This includes having an appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control to enable good food hygiene.

Likewise, the management of food safety was adjudged to be “generally satisfactory”, referring to the café having a system or checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat.

This also includes whether there is evidence that staff know about food safety and if the food safety officer has confidence that standards will be maintained in future.

The Oxford Mail has approached The Spires Cafe for comment.