All 21 Brighton and Hove food hygiene inspections rated in July 2026 scored the maximum 5, from Riddle and Finns and the Bandstand Cafe on the seafront to school kitchens, nurseries and Hove pubs.

Every Brighton and Hove food business rated in July walked away with top marks. All 21 inspections dated July 2026 on the national food hygiene register scored the maximum 5, “very good”, a clean sweep that took in seafront restaurants, West Street’s biggest bar, school kitchens, nurseries, care homes and a Whitehawk church hall. (Food Standards Agency, food hygiene ratings register)

The figures come from the FSA’s public register, which records every rating given under the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. Ratings dated July 2026 for the Brighton and Hove local authority area were retrieved on 5 August; the city council publishes results on a rolling basis, so late July inspections can still be added, and a quiet publication month is not unusual for an authority with more than 3,000 registered food businesses.

Who was inspected

Bar chart of Brighton and Hove's 21 July 2026 food hygiene ratings by business type, all rated 5: five restaurants and cafes, five pubs and bars, three school kitchens, two nurseries and care homes, two hotels and hostels, two other caterers, one supermarket and one mobile caterer
Chart by The Brighton Times.

The seafront did well. Riddle and Finns at the Rotunda on Kings Road, the Bandstand Cafe in the Kings Road Arches and the West Beach Hotel at 135 to 136 Kings Road all kept the top rating, along with Revolution at 77 West Street among the big night-time venues, and Phase One Hostel on Oriental Place.

In the Lanes and Kemptown, The Milk Shed on Prince Albert Street, Cafe Werks on Old Steine, The Pickle on Bristol Road, the Co-op on St Georges Road and two pubs, the Fiddler’s Elbow on Boyces Street and The Mucky Duck on Manchester Street, all scored 5. Hove’s entries were the Ginger Pig on Hove Street and The Freemasons on Western Road, both rated for their bar operations.

The rest of the list is the quieter, arguably more important end of food safety, kitchens feeding children and older residents: Downs Infant School on Ditchling Road, the KS1 breakfast club at Balfour Primary, Early Explorers Pre School at the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy, Hove Village Day Nursery on New Church Road and the Cloverdale House care home on Vallance Gardens, plus St Cuthmans Church in Whitehawk, BB’s Bakehouse and the Portslade-based mobile caterer Pizzazito.

How the ratings work

The scheme scores every inspected food business from 0, “urgent improvement necessary”, to 5, “very good”, based on what Brighton and Hove City Council’s food safety officers find on the day: how hygienically food is handled, the condition of the premises, and how well food safety is managed. A new rating replaces the old one at each inspection, and the sticker on the door should match the register entry.

What it means for you

A month with no low scores is good news, but ratings are a rolling picture, not a July snapshot of the whole city: most of Brighton and Hove’s 3,000-plus food businesses carry ratings from earlier inspections. Before trying somewhere new, the register is free to search by name or postcode at ratings.food.gov.uk, and each entry shows its inspection date so you can judge how current the score is. We will report the low ratings just as plainly when they appear.

For more practical local guides, see our pages on parking in Brighton and Brighton bin collection days.

Sources

  • Food Standards Agency, food hygiene ratings register (all ratings dated July 2026 for the Brighton and Hove local authority area, retrieved 5 August 2026; authority establishment count from the same register)
  • FSA register entries linked inline for each named business

Image: Bandstand, Brighton seafront by Ian Cunliffe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Chart by The Brighton Times.