A Chinese chef was captured on surveillance footage spitting in a dish while cooking for a customer at a restaurant in China.

The incident took place on Sunday at the Sufuji Restaurant in Xi’an following the easing of lockdown.

The customer was said to have gained access to the video after finding a cigarette butt in a stew he had ordered and then complained about it to the restaurant, according to local newspaper Huashang Daily. 

While watching the surveillance footage, the diner was left shocked to see the chef cooking without a face mask before spitting into his dish in the restaurant’s kitchen.

You can see in the surveillance footage very clearly that the chef bent down to spit into the wok especially,’ Mr Zheng said.

The restaurant claimed that the 22-year-old chef, Mr. Wang, had spat on the edge of the wok, not inside.

But the restaurant worker claimed he was experiencing tightness in the throat and spat on the ground.

He told the reporter that he had been suffering from throat inflammation. He said he was ‘feeling uncomfortable in the throat’ when he was making the dish.

The shopping mall, where the restaurant is situated in has ordered the store to shut down, while local market watchdog has launched an investigation into the matter and ordered the restaurant to rectify its problems, reported Beijing News. 

Officials are expected to revoke the shop’s business license and issue it a 100,000 yuan (£11,460) fine, the report said. 

In a social media statement released today, the resturant said it was ‘very ashamed’ of the matter and expressed its’most sincere apologies’ to the public.

They promised to cooperate with the investigation.