Failing grades at restaurants, even some of the city’s finest, have been fairly common. More than two-thirds of the establishments on Boston magazine’s list of the 50 best restaurants in Boston have failed at least one health inspection since January 2008. (See examples on the chart below.) The list includes some of the city’s swankiest dining venues, such as Mistral on Columbus Avenue, where entrees run upward of $40, and L’Espalier on Boylston Street, where the three-course prix fixe meal goes for $82.

“You’ve got an exception and certainly not the rule,” L’Espalier spokesperson Loring Barnes says of the restaurant’s failing inspection in February 2009. L’Espalier failed that inspection with five “foodborne illness risk factor critical violations,” the most severe of all violations. Those violations ranged from improper handling of ready-to-eat foods to staff observed not washing their hands after wiping their noses and faces.

Under the city’s new grading system, none of Boston magazine’s top 50 restaurants would have received failing grades, since their licenses were not suspended.

Goodfellow says the change was needed because the old pass/fail grading system was too broad. Some restaurants failed for a string of relatively minor offenses, while others failed for more serious violations that nevertheless did not result in a license suspension. Goodfellow says giving failing grades to restaurants that don’t have their licenses suspended is “misleading to the public.”

The grades given to Union Bar and Grille on Washington Street and Troquet on Boylston, both on Boston magazine’s list, illustrate Goodfellow’s point. Inspectional Services failed both restaurants on June 4, despite violations of very different severity.

Union Bar and Grille rang up a three-page-long list of 19 citations — four of them “critical violations” and two of those four listed as “foodborne illness risk factors.” The violations ranged from a dead mouse and rodent droppings to butter stored 40 degrees warmer than health code regulations.

Troquet, meanwhile, had six one-star violations. One-star violations are minor and do not pose a serious threat to public health. Troquet’s violations ranged from a faulty door in the restroom to items stored in a rear stairwell.

Under the new system there would still be no grade distinction between Union Bar and Grille’s performance and Troquet’s.

“This just seems to mask the problem,” says Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org and a former state consumer protection official. “It seems like what is really needed is some type of gradation besides pass and fail to distinguish between the minor violations and the ones that have major health and safety issues.”

Troquet manager Chris Campbell says he has no real problem with the “f” word. “Fail is a strong word, but it’s also something that has to be taken seriously. And if I can go to my employees and say, ‘We failed this,’ they have to get to the bottom of it and really fix it.”

Officials at Union Bar & Grille declined to comment.

Massachusetts Restaurant Association CEO Peter Christie says he is very happy that ISD is doing away with its failing grade. “I had written to Commissioner Goodfellow on that very issue,” he says. “There’s such a big difference between ‘fail’ and having found something that needs attention. When you use words like fail, that can have economic consequences.”

To obtain more information about city restaurant inspections, go to the city’s website.

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