Traditional media is starting to pick up on the food safety nonsense coming out of the Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal’s signature restaurant that sickened 529 with norovirus from raw oysters – and staff – in 2009.

The Guardian reports today the Fat Duck fiasco was the largest restaurant-related norovirus outbreak, ever.

The latest report published in the journal, Epidemiology and Infection, reports that at least 240 people had gastroenteritis

The fun part is the delusional deconstruction offered by a Fat Duck spokesthingy to the Guardian:

"The reported illness in February 2009 at the Fat Duck was confirmed as oysters contaminated at source by norovirus. At the time we voluntarily closed the restaurant and called in the authorities. We co-operated with all parties fully and transparently and received a clean bill of health to reopen after a 10-day investigation.”

The paper says the outbreak was reported to health types six weeks after the putative index case, and only after the restaurant had hired private consultants and only after the restaurant had already closed. By this time the restaurant had received 66 complaints of illness, but not bothered to tell anyone.

"We also received full support by our insurers who found no fault in our practices following a report from a leading UK independent specialist.”

Insurers tend not to publish peer-reviewed papers; no one knows who this independent specialist is. But anyone can know what the health types found. It’s in the paper.

“There is still no guaranteed safety measure in place today to protect the general public with regards to shellfish and viral contamination. For this reason we still do not serve oysters or razor clams at the Fat Duck."

There never was a guaranteed safety measure to protect the public from norovirus in raw shellfish, yet the restaurant knowingly chose to serve them anyway – until they got caught and made a lot of people barf.

Keep blaming others, Heston and crew, the Brits will swallow anything. Guess that’s why the Duck was attracting tens of thousands of calls a day from prospective diners earlier this year.