We all know the jokes starting Waiter, theres a fly in my soup. One young diner, Andrea Svensson from Gothenburg, Sweden, didn’t see the funny side when she was served a French Onion soup with a half-dead fly swimming in the bowl. Svensson was on a date with her long term boyfriend and fianc who had splashed out on a romantic evening – but the night took a wrong turn when her starter was served with the floating insect. I nearly put the horrible thing in my mouth before my fiance saw it and stopped me,” said Ms Svensson, 27. “It was revolting.” The diners, understandably not happy, delivered the cliched line to the nearest waiter. The waiter made the situation worse by thinking it was all a joke and simply laughed and walked away! “You might think it’s hilarious, but at the time we weren’t laughing.” said David Tomas, Andrea’s boyfriend. It was a real breach of good hygiene and put both of us off our meal. To be honest I just got more annoyed when he laughed it off as a joke.” In the end they had to get hold of the manager of the restaurant, who, upon seeing the insect apologised and offered the couple dinner at no charge. This offer was hurriedly refused by the pair, who were by this stage not feeling so hungry any more and decided to leave.

Joking aside, any restaurant knows how big a health and safety nightmare this situation could be. The hot summer weather naturally attracts insects, especially in a food preparation area, and installing a low cost insect killer is an absolute must in any commercial kitchen. This particular restaurant however, not being used to hot days in the Swedish climate, didnt have one. “This has never happened to us before – we are aware of the importance of making sure it never happens again,” said the head chef. We do take hygiene very seriously in our kitchens, and actually have an air filter already to trap airborne viruses, as well as air conditioning throughout the restaurant.” In a way it’s a blessing for other restaurants, who should really take this opportunity to learn the lessons here. Just one of these fly in soup incidents is enough to ruin a reputation. Not to mention attracting larger bugs like health inspectors, who can quite easily close an establishment down for something so simple and cheap to prevent.