Some years ago a magazine carried out research into the hygiene levels in some of the best-known restaurants, as well as some of the high-street chains.

The magazine came to the conclusion that Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets, as they were then known, offered the most hygienic experience around, thus damning forever the connection between cleanliness and good food.

However, decent restaurants are extraordinarily conscious of their levels of hygiene. After all, their reputations depend on them. Poisoning customers shortens the already short distance between them and the bankruptcy courts considerably.

In my experience the kitchens of the best restaurants, whether French, Italian, Indian or Chinese, get a twice daily cleaning after each service that leaves them in a state that few domestic kitchens even begin to approach. That is not to say high profile restaurants don't fall foul of the environmental health inspectors, but it happens very rarely.

It is doubtful whether this new initiative will fare any better than the Food Standards Agency's £20m, ill-received campaign to cut food poisoning in restaurants by 20% launched in 2002. The masterstroke of sending sick bags to restaurants and takeaways around the country was dismissed by the restaurant trade as "leaving a bad taste in the mouth".

Notified incidents of food poisoning have indeed dropped, from 81,562 in 2002 to 79,222 last year, but then they have been steadily declining anyway since a peak of 105,596 in 1997.

A recent survey by hygiene firm Kimberly-Clark revealed that UK diners were put off by dirty crockery and unkempt staff. The state of the kitchen clearly did not seem to trouble them. This is in keeping with our traditional self-deception that, as a nation, we are honest, hard-working and clean. Experience suggests that we are, in fact, dishonest, lazy and dirty.

· Matthew Fort is the Guardian's food editor