About the data

Cooked? republishes official restaurant health-inspection results from ten cities in two countries. Every grade on this site was issued by a government health department, not by us.

This page exists so you can check that. It lists each source, who publishes it, how often Cooked refreshes it, how that city's grading system works, and — importantly — what the data cannot tell you.

Cooked? is built and run by Arash Vakil under Vakil Ventures. It is an independent project with no affiliation to any health department or restaurant, and no restaurant can pay to change what appears here. Questions or corrections: [email protected].

Every source, city by city

Roughly 254,000 restaurants and about a million inspections in total. Cooked stores what the feeds publish and never deletes a record, so history accumulates locally even where a city only exposes a rolling window.

How Cooked handles the data

Refresh cadence

Every city is refetched daily on a staggered schedule, with a full reconciliation run weekly. The UK's Food Standards Agency feed offers no "changed since" filter, so all three UK cities are refetched in full every day. A grade change normally appears here within a day of the city publishing it.

What we add, and what we never touch

The grade is always the city's. Cooked adds exactly one derived layer: a three-step verdict — clean, mid, cooked — so that a New York letter grade, a Chicago pass/fail, a Seattle placard, an Austin score and a UK 0–5 rating can be compared at a glance. Each city's mapping is in the table above and spelled out below.

Cooked also computes an internal 0–100 risk score, used only to order leaderboards. It never overrides or contradicts the city's own grade.

One rule we are strict about

Cooked never invents a grade from a score. New York, in particular, withholds a letter after an inspection that scores 14 points or worse until a re-inspection settles it — those spots are legitimately "grade pending", and inferring a C from the raw score would contradict the city's own published record. Where a city has posted no grade, this site shows no grade.

What this data cannot tell you

• An inspection is a snapshot of one day, judged by one inspector. It is a signal, not a guarantee.
• Inspection frequency varies by city and by risk. An older date does not mean a worse kitchen.
• Four cities publish no violation detail at all (Austin and the three UK cities). An empty violation list there means the data does not exist, not that nothing was found.
• Roughly a fifth of UK listings publish only a partial postcode, so they cannot be placed on a map. They are still searchable by name.
• Restaurants that change ownership or name can appear as separate records, because that is how the city files them.

What each city's grade means

🗽 New York

New York City health inspectors score violations in points, and lower is better: 0–13 points earns an A, 14–27 a B, and 28 or more a C. Every restaurant is inspected at least once a year, and the letter has to be posted in the window. A restaurant that scores 14 or more on the first inspection of a cycle does not get a letter right away — it stays “Grade Pending” until a re-inspection settles it, which is why some spots here show an hourglass instead of a letter. Cooked only ever shows a letter the city actually posted; we never infer one from a score.

Source: NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) via NYC Open Data · browse New York inspections →

🌭 Chicago

Chicago does not use letter grades. Every inspection ends in one of three official results: Pass, Pass with Conditions, or Fail. Pass with Conditions means violations were found but corrected on the spot or under a deadline — the restaurant is open, with homework. A Fail means serious violations went uncorrected, and it usually brings a re-inspection within days. Chicago also flags “priority” violations, the ones most likely to actually make someone sick. Cooked reads Pass as clean, Pass with Conditions as mid, and Fail as cooked, and shows the itemized violations behind each result.

Source: Chicago Department of Public Health via Chicago Data Portal · browse Chicago inspections →

🌴 Los Angeles

Los Angeles County posts a letter placard in the window, and unlike New York the score runs the friendly way: higher is better. 90 to 100 points earns an A, 80 to 89 a B, and anything below that a C. The county inspects roughly every six months to a year depending on risk, and a failed inspection can close a kitchen until it is fixed. Because LA’s scores are final at the time of inspection — there is no pending window — a letter can be read straight off the score when the placard field is blank.

Source: LA County Department of Public Health, Environmental Health via LA County Open Data · browse Los Angeles inspections →

🎰 Las Vegas

The Southern Nevada Health District grades on demerits, and here more is worse: roughly 0–10 demerits earns an A, 11–20 a B, and 21 or more a C. Serious problems can skip the ladder entirely — an imminent health hazard gets the permit suspended and the kitchen shut on the spot, which shows up as a closure rather than a letter. SNHD covers all of Clark County, so Henderson, North Las Vegas and the unincorporated Strip all run the same scheme. Cooked reads A as clean, B as mid, C or a closure as cooked.

Source: Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) via SNHD Restaurant Inspections · browse Las Vegas inspections →

☔ Seattle

Public Health — Seattle & King County posts a word, not a letter: Excellent, Good, Okay, or Needs To Improve. The rating is deliberately not a snapshot — it averages the establishment’s recent routine inspections, so one bad day does not sink a consistently clean kitchen and one good day does not rescue a bad one. Inspectors score violations in red points for things that directly cause foodborne illness and blue points for everything else; around 45 red points triggers a mandatory re-inspection. Newly opened or recently changed spots can show as Not Rated until enough inspections accumulate.

Source: Public Health — Seattle & King County via King County Open Data · browse Seattle inspections →

🤠 Austin

Austin scores restaurants out of 100, and higher is better. Inspectors start at 100 and deduct for each violation, weighted by how likely it is to make someone sick. Under Texas rules a score below 70 is failing and brings a re-inspection. Austin Public Health publishes the scores but not the itemized violations behind them, so this page can tell you exactly how a kitchen scored and when — but not what specifically was written up. Cooked reads 90 and above as clean, 70 to 89 as mid, and below 70 as cooked.

Source: Austin Public Health via Austin Open Data · browse Austin inspections →

🦞 Boston

Boston reports inspections as a pass or a fail, with no score and no letter. What separates a bad fail from a trivial one is the violation severity ladder: a single star is a minor issue, two stars is more serious, and three stars marks a critical foodborne-illness risk factor — temperature abuse, bad handwashing, cross-contamination. A restaurant can fail on paperwork alone, which is not the same as failing on food safety. Cooked splits Boston fails accordingly: a fail with a three-star violation reads cooked, a fail on minor items only reads mid.

Source: Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division via Analyze Boston · browse Boston inspections →

💂 London

London runs the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, where every food business gets a single number from 0 to 5 and higher is better: 5 is very good, 3 is generally satisfactory, and 0 means urgent improvement is necessary. The rating combines three judgements made on the day — how hygienically food is handled, the condition of the premises, and how much confidence the inspector has in management. Each of the 33 London boroughs employs its own inspectors, but the scale is identical everywhere. The FSA publishes the rating and its date, but not the individual issues found.

Source: UK Food Standards Agency + London borough councils via Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · browse London inspections →

🐝 Manchester

Greater Manchester runs the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: one number from 0 to 5, where higher is better. A 5 is very good, a 3 is generally satisfactory, and a 0 means urgent improvement is necessary. The rating blends three things the inspector judges on the day — hygienic food handling, the state of the building and equipment, and confidence in how the place is managed. The ten Greater Manchester councils each run their own inspection teams against the same national scale. The FSA publishes the rating and the date it was given, but not the specific problems found.

Source: UK Food Standards Agency + Greater Manchester councils via Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · browse Manchester inspections →

🐂 Birmingham

Birmingham and the wider West Midlands run the national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: a single 0 to 5 rating where higher is better. A 5 is very good, a 3 is generally satisfactory, and a 0 means urgent improvement is necessary. The number combines hygienic food handling, the physical condition of the premises, and the inspector’s confidence in management. Each West Midlands council inspects its own patch against the same national standard, so a 4 in Solihull means what a 4 means in Birmingham. The FSA publishes the rating and its date, but never the itemized findings.

Source: UK Food Standards Agency + West Midlands councils via Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · browse Birmingham inspections →

Corrections

Cooked republishes the city's record, so a wrong grade has to be corrected at the source — contact the health department that issued the inspection, and the correction will flow through on the next refresh. If Cooked is showing something the city is not, email [email protected] and it will be looked into.

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