The owner of a popular Dickson vegetarian restaurant was morally opposed to wiping out a cockroach infestation because it would have involved "killing little insects".

Kingsland Vegetarian Restaurant was on Thursday fined $16,000 for eight food safety breaches.

ACT Health inspectors discovered the live and dead cockroaches in the kitchen of the northside eatery in April 2013.

The threat to public health through contaminated food meant the inspectors shut the "unhygienic" restaurant the next day.

But on Thursday the ACT Magistrates Court was told that the restaurant, which is still trading, has since fixed the problems and won awards for its vegetarian and vegan fare.