The Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues has withdrawn its kashrut certification from the Met Su Yan restaurant in Golders Green, saying it has “lost confidence” in the restaurant’s willingness to abide by its supervisory rules.

The Chinese restaurant’s kosher licence with the Federation, which was due for renewal in January 2020, will instead expire on July 12. The Edgware branch of Met Su Yan is unaffected, being under different ownership.

Speaking to the JC, Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation Beth Din, said staff members at the Golders Green restaurant had “created an attitude and an atmosphere that made it difficult for the Beth Din mashgichim and shomrim [kashrut observers] to carry out their supervisory duties”.

He described the atmosphere as “a growing thing, cumulative”, which had come about over the past nine months. There had been “continuous serious breaches”, although he did not elaborate.

“At the end of the day, my name appears on the bottom of the licence,” he said.

“If I don’t feel I can satisfactorily run the kashrut, we lose confidence in the people we’re dealing with [and] we have to remove the licence.”

A Met Su Yan spokesperson claimed on Tuesday that the Federation’s withdrawal of its licence “hadn’t been decided yet” and there were “still meetings going on with the dayanim in order to find a solution for the problem”.

But Dayan Lichtenstein said subsequently that “no agreement had been reached” on any deal which would allow the restaurant to retain its Federation kashrut certificate.

The Met Su Yan representative had described the issue as not being a kashrut problem, but rather “a disciplinary matter. It’s not like treif has been sold, chas vshalom [God forbid], or anything like that.

“There is just a diplomatic issue in between the restaurant and some of the Federation’s personnel.”

He was unable to confirm whether the restaurant had a plan to obtain a kosher licence from another Beth Din after the Federation's certificate expired.