Guildford Food Hygiene: August Results, 3 Venues Rated 1

Guildford’s food inspectors handed out nothing but top marks in August. Every one of the 40 businesses whose inspection results have been published for the month scored the maximum food hygiene rating of 5, according to the Food Standards Agency register. No venue in the borough was rated 4 or below.

Updated 2 October: this was not the full picture. Ratings below 5 are published 3 to 5 weeks after the inspection, and the register now holds 75 August inspections: 56 rated 5, 10 rated 4, 6 rated 3 and 3 rated 1. The full August results and the three venues rated 1.

The clean sweep covers restaurants, pubs, supermarkets, schools, care settings and village hotels. Among the names:

• On the High Street: Caffe Nero, Sainsbury’s, the Marks & Spencer food hall and The Fallen Angel
• Around the town centre: Giggling Squid on Chapel Street, Gail’s and Pho in Tunsgate Quarter, the Star Inn on Quarry Street, The Thai Terrace above the Castle car park, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and the Lloyds Number 1 Bar in the Rodboro Buildings
• Pubs and locals: The Drummond on Woodbridge Road, The Britannia at Millmead and The New Rose in Bellfields
• In the villages: the De Vere Horsley Estate at Horsley Towers, Thatchers Hotel in East Horsley, the National Trust’s Hatchlands Kitchen Cafe at East Clandon, Worplesdon Place, Nest and the Co-op in Ripley, and Bentley Copse Activity Centre near Shere
• Takeaways and everyday stops: Guildford Kebab Centre on Woodbridge Hill and Domino’s Pizza on Epsom Road

How the borough scores overall

The August results nudge an already strong table. Of the 1,003 rated venues on the register for Guildford borough on 2 September:

• 812 hold a 5, which is 81 per cent
• 140 hold a 4 and 43 hold a 3
• 6 are rated 2 and 2 are rated 1
• no venue in the borough is rated 0

A further 75 businesses are awaiting their first inspection and 70 are exempt from a rating, which brings the register’s full list for the borough to 1,148 places that handle food.

A rating is not just about the kitchen. Inspectors score three things: how food is handled, the condition of the premises, and how well food safety is managed and recorded. A business scoring poorly on any one of the three cannot get the top rating, so a 5 means all three passed.

The small print on the numbers

The register publishes inspection results a couple of weeks after the visit, so August’s picture may still fill in. The latest published rating date for the borough was 22 August when we checked on 2 September; inspections carried out in the final week of the month should appear in the coming weeks, and we will report them if any breaks the run.

The handful of venues currently rated 1 or 2 were inspected in earlier months. Businesses with a low rating have a right to reply on the register, can appeal the rating, and can request a re-inspection once they have fixed what was found.

What it means for you

Any food business in the borough can be looked up free on the Food Standards Agency register, and the sticker in the window should match it. Check the rating date as well as the number: some ratings are years old, and a kitchen can change hands between visits. Many of the venues above, including Giggling Squid, the Star Inn, Gail’s, The Drummond and Nest in Ripley, are in our Guildford food and drink directory with opening hours and contact details.

Correction, 2 October 2026

The original headline of this report said all 40 August inspections in the borough were rated 5, and the report said no venue had been rated 4 or below. That was true of the results published by 2 September, but it was not true of August. Food hygiene ratings of 0 to 4 are published 3 to 5 weeks after the inspection to allow time for an appeal, while 5s are published straight away (FSA guidance for businesses). By 2 October the register held 75 August inspections: 56 rated 5, 10 rated 4, 6 rated 3 and 3 rated 1. We should have said the month was incomplete. The headline and description have been changed, and the full results are in our September report.