AN AWARD-WINNING Italian restaurant stored food in an area infested with mice, Bexley Magistrates Court heard.

La Dolce Vita, in Nuxley Road, Belvedere, has been used by Bexley Council for a Christmas party and the mayor presented the owners with a commemorative plate for the quality of food.

But the director of Justino Ltd, Livio Panizza, who runs the restaurant, has admitted six breaches of food-safety regulations after an inspection by environmental health officers.

Panizzi was fined £21,000 as the company director with £500 costs and Justino Ltd was fined a further £21,000 plus £500 costs for breaches including:

l Food stored in a disused pet shop which was infested with mice and full of cobwebs;

l Maggots and larvae found in the gaps between freezers and the wall;

l Traces of mould around the washbasins in the kitchen;

l Live mussels being stored in a bucket which may have also been used for storing toilet cleaner;

l A cream gateau found defrosting on a meat tray;

l 270 two-litre bottles of wine found to be unfit for human consumption due to over-fermentation.

Prosecuting, Guy Atkins told magistrates he did not need to add anything to the environmental health officers report.

Defending, Jatinder Sokhal said Panizzi had been forced to return to Italy for two months before the inspection in March because his parents had died.

The defence also claimed some of the staff employed at the restaurant had slacked off in their cleaning duties in Panizzis absence. The restaurant owner did not have any previous convictions and was planning to give his restaurant a £150,000 overhaul.

La Dolce Vita opened in 1992 and had a turnover of £4,500 a week before an emergency prohibition order forced the restaurant to close temporarily last March.

It has now reopened but takings have been down to £2,500 a week.

Panizzi said afterwards: I have been in the restaurant business 31 years and this is the first inspection I have failed. We will appeal.