ASK Italian has been fined £40,000 for misleading its customers by selling a “luxury lobster” dish that was largely made up of artificially-flavoured white fish.
Trading Standards discovered that the chain’s most expensive dish Aragosta e Gamberoni – lobster and king prawns – contained just 35 per cent lobster.
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Another 34 per cent of the disk was made of white fish, flavoured and formed to look like lobster.
The Italian chain – which has 112 restaurants in the UK – described the dish as ‘lobster and king prawns in a creamy tomato sauce with a hint of chilli’.
It was sold in restaurants for over six years and cost customers £14.95 per portion.
The filling was created using the “Lobster Sensations” product, which arrives prepacked at the restaurant.
This usually retails at just £1.40 per 100g despite the the meal selling at restaurants for almost £15.
The total cost of the raw ingredients was £2.84 with just 70p worth of lobster.
A probe was launched after Trading Standards at Swansea Council made a routine visit to a branch in the Welsh city.
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A request to see the dish raised concerns that the meal did not resemble lobster.
Further investigations through testing of the dish highlighted the fact only a third of the dish was made from lobster with the remaining elements made up from white fish and filler.
Rhys Harries, Swansea Council’s trading standards team leader, said: “When our officers visited the restaurant in March 2019, our investigations prompted some concerns over their most expensive dish which was described as lobster.
“We felt that the description on the menu compared to the product actually served was likely to mislead customers as to the substance of the food.”
ASK Italian received a £40,000 fine after pleading guilty to an offence under the Food Safety Act 1990.
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The dish was removed from menus in March last year following the Trading Standards investigation.
But the court heard the company had made £3million from selling the dish in the six years that it was on the menu.
Mark Thomas, cabinet member for Environment and Infrastructure Management, said: “Customers who pay good money to eat at restaurants should actually be served with what they believe they have paid for.
“Our view is that customers were being misled and not aware of the additional ingredients in the meal.
“Hopefully it sends a strong message out to other restaurants, regardless of their size, that we will continue to check up on these issues.”
Restaurant spokesman, Oliver Campbell said the firm apologised for and regretted the “error” it had made the Daily Mail reports.
He said it had been a “mistake in the description given to the dish” and there had been no intention to mislead.
District judge Neale Thomas said in his view the way the dish had been described on the menu by the firm was a “deliberate action”, and that it “falsely represented” the nature of the food.
ASK Italian did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment.
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