EAST VILLAGE — The health department shut down Filipino restaurant Maharlika after it found live roaches and filth flies at the eatery during a Dec. 4 inspection, records show.
The popular restaurant — named one of the 25 best new restaurants in 2011 by Complex magazine — received 41 violation points last week, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website.
Maharlika’s four critical violations included the presence of live roaches, filth flies, and “evidence of mice or live mice present,” according to the agency’s website. Food was also not protected from potential sources of contamination, records show.
The agency also determined that the facility was “not vermin proof” and that it had not used pesticides “in accordance with label or applicable laws,” according to its website.
The restaurant was still closed as of lunchtime Monday with a sign on the restaurant that said it would re-open next week with a “new menu and new look.”
Maharlika's closure was first reported by Eater.
According to owner Nicole Ponseca, the restaurant shares basement space with a nearby candy shop and tenants who live in the building. While the restaurant only has access to one of the three storage rooms, she said, it is held responsible for the whole basement.
“When I can’t have access to the other rooms and yet I’m responsible for it that’s a major hurdle to overcome,” said Ponseca, who has been in Miami operating a pop-up of Marharlika's sister restaurant, Jeepney, at Art Basel.
She noted that Maharlika, and Jeepney, located a few blocks north on First Avenue have received “A” grades in the past.
“We operate clean restaurants,” she said.
Ponseca said she hoped to reopen the restaurant Tuesday, with a new menu that featured new regional Filipino dishes, as well as updated décor that features images representing Philippine culture.
The restaurant began as a pop-up before laying down roots on First Avenue near East Seventh Street in 2011.
Since then, the restaurant has been known for its traditional dishes like sisig, a pork dish, as well as more modern takes on Filipino flavors, like Spam fries and the “Flip’D Chicken and Ube Waffle,” a batterless fried chicken served on a purple yam waffle with compound anchovy-bagoong butter and carmelized macapuno syrup.
