THE directors of a York Chinese restaurant face a court bill of £11,500 after magistrates heard of "gunge" and "sludge" found at the city centre eaterie.

Tony Stevenson gave a catalogue of food hygiene failings at the Willow Restaurant in Coney Street which included congealed liquid and grease on the floor, plumbing and some cooking equipment, food debris lying on the floor, and liquid from raw chicken leaking on to the floor.

He said that when senior environment officer Alan Noonan inspected the restaurant in November 2002 he saw one chef running his hand through his hair several times as he worked in the kitchen and other staff drying their hands on cleaning cloths or not wearing aprons.

The inspection came six months after York Trading Standards had warned the restaurant to clean up its kitchen or face legal proceedings. The prosecution was brought on behalf of the York Food and Safety Unit.

Married couple Tommy Fong and Soo Mei Fong pleaded guilty to three offences each of food hygiene breaches. They were each fined £4,500 and were between them ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,525.

Senior magistrate Gillian Sanderson said: "An aggravating feature of this case is: there had been ongoing problems for some time with hygiene at the Willow Restaurant."

Mr Stevenson said that "gunge" had been found on the floor and that "sludge" had been found close to the fridge.

For the Fongs, Chris Smith said the problems may have been caused by the singular success of its continuous buffet-style meal which had started recently.

They had insufficient staff to deal with the increase in customers, but had taken on extra staff for cleaning duties.

Although some staff had attended courses in food hygiene, many spoke only Cantonese or Mandarin and had not been able to do so before the inspection. They had now done so.

The Fongs had failed to police their staff sufficiently to ensure they were observing food hygiene regulations.

Since the inspection they had completely replaced the kitchen floor at a cost of just under £3,000, a knife sharpener found in dirt had been destroyed, and plumbing had also been replaced.

Updated: 14:28 Wednesday, May 19, 2004