The manager of a long-established Hampstead coffee shop says the premises is now "spotless" after getting a very low hygiene rating.

Bekim Haradini, manager of The Coffee Cup in Hampstead High Street, says "everything is in order" after Camden Council gave the cafe a hygiene rating of 2.

Following a monitoring visit in November the council listed 15 improvements needed within timeframes ranging from "immediate" to "eight weeks".

Infringements in the report included food found past its use-by-date or unlabelled, a dirty grill, filters, ice machine and hand contact areas, and that "no-one washed their hands".

The report also said there were no temperature records for hot food, most of the food was stored uncovered and the "safe food better business book" was blank.

Mr Haradini said: "Everything is in order and organised now."

The coffee lounge has been serving Hampstead customers and visitors from outside the ward for more than 50 years.

Mr Haradini added that he was hoping to receive a better rating soon. He said: "We are applying for Camden to come back and have a look. It costs £360. If we want them to come back we have to pay for it."

The manager disputed that food was kept past its use-by date.

"We never served food out of date, that never happened but the thing is, everything needs to be labelled," said Bekim.

"If the inspector comes and he sees that something is not labelled, even if you made it today, they don't care. If it's missing you have to have a label on it but that's the rule and we are following the rules.

"Tomato sauce, if you make it right now, label it right now. There's so much tomato sauce it never ends, but I agree, that is the rules."

He added: "Everything is spotless now."

Asked what caused a slip in standards, Bekim said some of the problem lay with paperwork.

He said: "The temperature records, some of them were missing.

"Now it's all paperwork, 75% of what we do is paperwork. As soon as you come in write the training staff, this, that so many things.

"They ask for the book where you need to write down everything every single day. We are now going through everything so everything is in order so we've applied for them to come back and see that everything is in order."