• resultFail
• critical violations0
• last inspectedApril 23, 2026 →
• address290 Washington St, Brighton 02135

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Is Cafe Lava & Bento clean?

Cafe Lava & Bento is currently Fail from Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division, from an inspection on April 23, 2026. No critical violations were recorded at that visit. On Cooked's ladder that reads mid 😬.

What did inspectors find at Cafe Lava & Bento?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on April 23, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• ⚠️Variance Requirement (Pf)
• ⚠️Maintaining Premises Unnecessary Items and Litter (C)
• ⚠️flagged at inspection

Cafe Lava & Bento inspection and administrative history

Cafe Lava & Bento has 13 inspections on record going back to October 12, 2023. The 12 most recent are shown below.

Cafe Lava & Bento vs Brighton

Brighton runs 85% clean across 480 tracked restaurants — 395 clean, 37 mid, 33 cooked.

Against the 480 spots Cooked tracks in Brighton, this one comes out cleaner than 12% of them.

Other spots in Brighton

• ✓ Lakon Brighton
  clean · April 13, 2026
• ✓ From Scratch
  clean · August 26, 2026
• ✓ Pizza Etc
  clean · November 6, 2024
• ✓ Fuel America
  clean · April 14, 2026
• ✓ Stop & Shop Supermarket/Starbucks
  clean · July 1, 2026
• ✓ Nakhon
  clean · May 1, 2026

See every restaurant inspection in Brighton →

How Boston grades restaurants

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.

Read the Boston ratings guide →

Inspection findings and available history come from the authority’s published records. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.

Source: Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division via Analyze Boston. Cooked refreshes this data daily — this listing's most recent inspection is dated April 23, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.

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Cooked covers 10 cities on official inspection data — see who's clean, mid, or cooked near you.