Cooked?How restaurant health ratings work
Ten cities use several different grading systems. Cooked keeps the official result intact, then maps it onto one simple traffic light so you can compare places without pretending an NYC score means the same thing as a London rating.
- clean 😇the city's strongest results
- mid 😬concerns, conditions, or middling results
- cooked 🪳failures, low ratings, or health closures
- not rated 🫥no current official result
Cooked never turns an unposted NYC grade into a letter, never treats “not rated” as a failure, and never invents violation detail a city does not publish.
🗽 New York
clean, mid, and cooked map to NYC’s real A, B, and C letter grades.
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.
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.
Read the full plain-English New York guide →
Official source: NYC Open Data · Browse New York restaurants →
🌭 Chicago
clean = Pass, mid = Pass w/ Conditions, cooked = Fail — Chicago’s official results.
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.
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.
Read the full plain-English Chicago guide →
Official source: Chicago Data Portal · Browse Chicago restaurants →
🌴 Los Angeles
clean, mid, and cooked map to LA County’s A, B, and C window placards.
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.
Inspection findings and available history come from the authority’s published records. Cooked checks daily, but the authority publishes in batches, so a recent visit may not appear yet. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.
Read the full plain-English Los Angeles guide →
Official source: LA County Open Data · Browse Los Angeles restaurants →
🎰 Las Vegas
clean, mid, and cooked map to SNHD’s A, B, and C grades (closures read cooked).
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.
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.
Read the full plain-English Las Vegas guide →
Official source: SNHD Restaurant Inspections · Browse Las Vegas restaurants →
☔ Seattle
clean = Excellent/Good, mid = Okay, cooked = Needs To Improve — King County’s placard ratings.
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.
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.
Read the full plain-English Seattle guide →
Official source: King County Open Data · Browse Seattle restaurants →
🤠 Austin
Austin publishes 0–100 scores (higher is better): clean ≥ 90, mid 70–89, cooked < 70.
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.
Austin publishes inspection scores and dates, but no itemized violations in this feed. Cooked checks daily, but the authority publishes in batches, so a recent visit may not appear yet. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.
Read the full plain-English Austin guide →
Official source: Austin Open Data · Browse Austin restaurants →
🦞 Boston
clean = passed, cooked = failed on critical food-safety factors, mid = failed on minor stuff only.
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.
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.
Read the full plain-English Boston guide →
Official source: Analyze Boston · Browse Boston restaurants →
💂 London
the FSA rates 0–5 (higher is better): clean = 4 or 5, mid = 3, cooked = 2 or below.
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.
The FSA feed provides the current food hygiene rating and its date, not itemized violations or a complete inspection history. It does not report health closures. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.
Read the full plain-English London guide →
Official source: Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · Browse London restaurants →
🐝 Manchester
the FSA rates 0–5 (higher is better): clean = 4 or 5, mid = 3, cooked = 2 or below.
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.
The FSA feed provides the current food hygiene rating and its date, not itemized violations or a complete inspection history. It does not report health closures. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.
Read the full plain-English Manchester guide →
Official source: Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · Browse Manchester restaurants →
🐂 Birmingham
the FSA rates 0–5 (higher is better): clean = 4 or 5, mid = 3, cooked = 2 or below.
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.
The FSA feed provides the current food hygiene rating and its date, not itemized violations or a complete inspection history. It does not report health closures. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.
Read the full plain-English Birmingham guide →
Official source: Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · Browse Birmingham restaurants →