Research restaurants, cafés and canteens
Start with the FSA's combined restaurant, café and canteen category in the Leeds council area.
What the output looks like
Five saved rows and six selected columns from the DataScoop import recorded at . This is the import time, not the date each record was updated.
| Business name | Business type | Hygiene rating | Rated on | Postcode | Local authority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "CRUSTODY" | Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen | 5 | 2026-03-26 | LS22 5ED | Leeds |
| 13 Noodles | Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen | 5 | 2025-11-19 | LS27 8DS | Leeds |
| 1915 | Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen | 5 | 2025-10-23 | LS2 9JT | Leeds |
| 2 Sardi | Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen | 5 | 2024-09-27 | LS19 6HJ | Leeds |
| 200 Degrees Coffee Shop | Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen | 5 | 2026-08-21 | LS1 5BQ | Leeds |
These five rows were captured on 21 October with the older contains filters, then checked against the exact Leeds authority and Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen category. No current full-list count is claimed.
Check the scope and fields
This dataset covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland's FHIS records are a separate dataset. Leeds means the council area, including places such as Morley and Wetherby, rather than just the city centre.
- Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen is one FSA category. It includes cafés and institutional canteens; the saved example includes a canteen at a young offenders institution.
- The 11 public columns cover business name, type, hygiene rating and date, address, postcode, council and coordinates where supplied. There are no phone, email or website columns.
- A hygiene rating is not a review of food quality. A business's rating date is separate from the import date. Coordinates and address fields can be missing.
Source: Food Standards Agency. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Food Standards Agency (ratings.food.gov.uk). Not endorsed by or affiliated with the FSA.
The current request's filters
localAuthorityExactLeeds
Exact name and casebusinessTypeExactRestaurant/Cafe/Canteen
Exact name and case
strict_filters=1 rejects invalid or unknown nonempty filters. It does not change a contains filter into an exact match.
Use this with an assistant
In an assistant that supports hosted MCP, add https://datascoop.io/mcp using its connection settings. A key is optional for a free preview. Keep any key in the connection settings; do not paste it into a prompt.
Find food businesses in the Leeds local-authority area using DataScoop's FSA dataset. Use localAuthorityExact=Leeds and businessTypeExact=Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen. Start with 25 rows. Show business name, business type, hygiene rating, rating date and postcode. Keep the FSA's combined category intact: it includes cafés and institutional canteens, not only public restaurants. Include the source, recorded import date and whether more rows match. Leave missing values blank.
Ask the assistant to inspect get_dataset_schema, then call query_dataset with these arguments:
{
"dataset": "fsa",
"filters": {
"localAuthorityExact": "Leeds",
"businessTypeExact": "Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen"
},
"strict_filters": true,
"limit": 25,
"offset": 0
}Read total, returned, truncated, applied_filters and provenance.imported_at before describing the result. If more rows match, request further pages only when you need them. A failed query or an empty result is not evidence that no such businesses exist.
Use this in your app
These examples use standard libraries: Node.js 20 or later, or Python 3. Save the file, then run it from a terminal. No account or paid AI model is needed to try a free query. If you have a DataScoop key, set DATASCOOP_API_KEY in your environment; it is sent as a Bearer header.
The code requests 25 rows per page, supports free pagination and stops above 2,500 matching rows or 100 pages. It prints JSON only after all reported rows have been retrieved. A zero-match result prints an empty row list; errors exit without printing a partial list.
JavaScript · Node.js 20+
Save as query.mjs, then run node query.mjs. Download the JavaScript example.
// Node.js 20+. No packages required. Optional key: DATASCOOP_API_KEY.
const endpoint = "https://datascoop.io/v1/datasets/fsa/query";
const dataset = "fsa";
const filters = {
"localAuthorityExact": "Leeds",
"businessTypeExact": "Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen"
};
const PAGE_SIZE = 25, MAX_ROWS = 2500, MAX_PAGES = 100;
const headers = { Accept: "application/json" };
const key = (process.env.DATASCOOP_API_KEY || "").trim();
if (key) headers.Authorization = "Bearer " + key;
async function retrieve() {
const rows = [];
let total = null, importedAt = null, first = null;
for (let page = 0; page < MAX_PAGES; page++) {
const url = new URL(endpoint);
url.search = new URLSearchParams({ ...filters, strict_filters: "1",
limit: String(PAGE_SIZE), offset: String(rows.length) });
const response = await fetch(url, { headers, signal: AbortSignal.timeout(30000) });
if (!response.ok) throw new Error("Query failed: HTTP " + response.status +
". Check filters and access; retry later for rate limits or server errors.");
const result = await response.json();
if (result.dataset !== dataset || !Array.isArray(result.rows) ||
result.rows.some(row => !row || typeof row !== "object" || Array.isArray(row)) ||
!Array.isArray(result.ignored) || result.ignored.length ||
!Number.isSafeInteger(result.total) || result.total < 0 ||
result.offset !== rows.length || result.returned !== result.rows.length ||
result.returned > PAGE_SIZE || typeof result.truncated !== "boolean") {
throw new Error("Unexpected query response; no partial result was printed.");
}
if (result.total > MAX_ROWS) throw new Error("More than " + MAX_ROWS +
" rows match. Narrow the filters or review the bound before increasing it.");
for (const [name, value] of Object.entries(filters)) {
if (String(result.applied_filters?.[name]) !== String(value))
throw new Error("A requested filter was not applied: " + name);
}
const imported = result.provenance?.imported_at;
if (typeof imported !== "string" || !Number.isFinite(Date.parse(imported)))
throw new Error("Import date is missing; no partial result was printed.");
if (first === null) { first = result; total = result.total; importedAt = imported; }
if (result.total !== total || imported !== importedAt)
throw new Error("The import or match count changed. Run the request again.");
const next = rows.length + result.returned;
if (next > total || result.truncated !== (next < total) ||
(result.returned === 0 && next < total))
throw new Error("Pagination stopped making sense; no partial result was printed.");
rows.push(...result.rows);
if (rows.length === total) return { dataset, filters, total, rows,
provenance: first.provenance, licence: first.licence, attribution: first.attribution };
}
throw new Error("Page limit reached. Narrow the filters; no partial result was printed.");
}
try {
const result = await retrieve();
if (result.total === 0) console.error("No matching records. Check the selected area and filters.");
// Keep provenance and attribution with cached or republished data.
console.log(JSON.stringify(result, null, 2));
} catch (error) {
console.error(error instanceof Error ? error.message : "Request failed.");
process.exitCode = 1;
}
Python · standard library
Save as query.py, then run python3 query.py. Download the Python example.
# Python 3. No packages required. Optional key: DATASCOOP_API_KEY.
import json
import os
import sys
from datetime import datetime
from urllib.error import HTTPError, URLError
from urllib.parse import urlencode
from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
ENDPOINT = "https://datascoop.io/v1/datasets/fsa/query"
DATASET = "fsa"
FILTERS = json.loads("{\"localAuthorityExact\":\"Leeds\",\"businessTypeExact\":\"Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen\"}")
PAGE_SIZE, MAX_ROWS, MAX_PAGES = 25, 2500, 100
HEADERS = {"Accept": "application/json"}
key = os.environ.get("DATASCOOP_API_KEY", "").strip()
if key:
HEADERS["Authorization"] = "Bearer " + key
def text_value(value):
return "true" if value is True else "false" if value is False else str(value)
def retrieve():
rows, total, imported_at, first = [], None, None, None
for _ in range(MAX_PAGES):
params = dict(FILTERS, strict_filters="1", limit=PAGE_SIZE, offset=len(rows))
request = Request(ENDPOINT + "?" + urlencode(params), headers=HEADERS)
with urlopen(request, timeout=30) as response:
result = json.load(response)
if (not isinstance(result, dict) or result.get("dataset") != DATASET or
not isinstance(result.get("rows"), list) or
any(not isinstance(row, dict) for row in result["rows"]) or
not isinstance(result.get("ignored"), list) or result["ignored"] or
type(result.get("total")) is not int or result["total"] < 0 or
type(result.get("offset")) is not int or result["offset"] != len(rows) or
type(result.get("returned")) is not int or
result.get("returned") != len(result["rows"]) or
result["returned"] > PAGE_SIZE or type(result.get("truncated")) is not bool):
raise ValueError("Unexpected query response; no partial result was printed.")
if result["total"] > MAX_ROWS:
raise ValueError("More than 2500 rows match. Narrow filters or review the bound.")
applied = result.get("applied_filters")
if not isinstance(applied, dict):
raise ValueError("Applied filters are missing.")
for name, value in FILTERS.items():
if name not in applied or text_value(applied[name]) != text_value(value):
raise ValueError("A requested filter was not applied: " + name)
provenance = result.get("provenance")
imported = provenance.get("imported_at") if isinstance(provenance, dict) else None
if not isinstance(imported, str):
raise ValueError("Import date is missing; no partial result was printed.")
datetime.fromisoformat(imported.replace("Z", "+00:00"))
if first is None:
first, total, imported_at = result, result["total"], imported
if result["total"] != total or imported != imported_at:
raise ValueError("The import or match count changed. Run the request again.")
next_offset = len(rows) + result["returned"]
if (next_offset > total or result["truncated"] != (next_offset < total) or
(result["returned"] == 0 and next_offset < total)):
raise ValueError("Pagination stopped making sense; no partial result was printed.")
rows.extend(result["rows"])
if len(rows) == total:
return dict(dataset=DATASET, filters=FILTERS, total=total, rows=rows,
provenance=first["provenance"], licence=first.get("licence"),
attribution=first.get("attribution"))
raise ValueError("Page limit reached. Narrow filters; no partial result was printed.")
try:
result = retrieve()
if result["total"] == 0:
print("No matching records. Check the selected area and filters.", file=sys.stderr)
# Keep provenance and attribution with cached or republished data.
print(json.dumps(result, indent=2))
except HTTPError as error:
print("Query failed: HTTP " + str(error.code) + ". Check filters and access; retry later for rate limits or server errors.", file=sys.stderr)
sys.exit(1)
except (URLError, TimeoutError, ValueError, TypeError, KeyError) as error:
print(str(error), file=sys.stderr)
sys.exit(1)
The code stops if the reported import date or total changes between pages. Requests do not pin a retained snapshot, so an unchanged date does not guarantee that an import cannot cause missing or repeated rows across pages. Keep the source, filters, import date and attribution with saved results; cache them instead of polling.
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