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| Oyster, passion fruit jelly and lavender at the Fat Duck. Photo: smashz, Flickr |
That's the number of customers who fell ill with vomiting and diarrhea at the Bray, England restaurant, and forced its two-week closure. Now, Britain's Health Protection Agency has published a 47-page report pinning the blame on norovirus caused by oysters contaminated with human sewage, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The closure, at the time, cost the restaurant about $500,000.
When the restaurant reopened in March, the illness outbreak was originally linked to a number of workers with the norovirus -- better known as a stomach bug or gastroenteritis.
However, the new report cites shellfish as a main culprit. Testing showed raw oysters from a supplier in Essex had been contaminated by raw sewage and consequently became infected with the norovirus.
"We are glad that the report has finally been published and draws a conclusion to the closure of the Fat Duck and more importantly that the norovirus has been identified as the cause and not due to any lapse in our strict food preparation processes," a restaurant spokesman told the Daily Telegraph.
The Fat Duck's chef, Heston Blumenthal, is world-renowned for molecular gastronomy with dishes like "nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream."
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