Shellfish poisoning

[gofibrogofibrogo]

Went out for dinner last night to a seafood restaurant. I had mixed platter - inc mussels, clams, prawns, and scallops. DH (who had skate) tried a bit of everything except the prawns and clams.

We ate our food around 7.30/8pm. I noticed one of the clams had some sand/grit in it but otherwise enjoyed the meal.

I woke up at midnight feeling very queasy and then spent 12-4am throwing up every 20 mins. The vomiting stopped in the early hours, and I've been feeling better today aside from rumbling stomach cramps and diahorrea.

I emailed the restaurant this morning to explain what happened in case they had a bad batch of clams, or wanted to check their procedures etc. I'm not looking for a refund (despite the fact it was a pricey meal!) just an acknowledgement and ideally an apology.

They've replied in a very gaslighty tone to categorically deny there's any possibility their food would have made me sick and to suggest I have stomach flu and that if I'm so sure it's their food I should get a GP appt and prove it. But a quick read suggests there is no reliable test for shellfish poisoning (plus it's a bank hol so by the time I get an appt symptoms will have resolved) so they know that's not going to help my case.

Am I wrong to assume that sickness that starts within a few hours of eating gritty clams, and resolves relatively quickly is shellfish poisoning? Their snarky response has made me pretty determined to pursue this.

Ed: Pursue not for financial compensation, but just to prove it was their food that made me sick!

Of course they won’t acknowledge it, then they’re admitting liability & that opens them up to all sorts of potential issues.

Yes it sounds like food poisoning but that is always a risk with shellfish - it’s hard to spot the ones that will cause problems.

I hope you feel better soon.

DH has been sick after eating mussels loads of times. He hasn't ever sought to get the restaurant to take responsibility though, I don't really know what that would achieve, it's shellfish, it's not necessarily their cooking or processes.

You literally cannot tell with shellfish. DH and I shared a chilled seafood platter in a £££££ Michelin starred restaurant. He was ill for a week, I was fine. It happens, nothing the restaurant can do to prevent it.

Have you had each of these sorts of shellfish before? I discovered the hard way, on a daytrip to France, that I was allergic to mussels. 😟

Quite a lot of people are allergic but put it down to food poisoning. One way to tell is if the reaction gets worse over time.

I don’t think being gritty would make any difference. The toxin, if there was any, would have been in the shellfish.

It’s really shitty of the restaurant to push that back to you though. Any report of illness should be taken really seriously. If it was food poisoning from their ingredients, there will be more than just you who is suffering/who has reported.

Its also possible it could be norovirus from someone in the restaurant not washing their hands properly, so linked to the restaurant but not specifically because of the shellfish.

All it would take would be one bad mussel so I wouldn’t necessarily blame it on the clams! Shitty of them not to even acknowledge the possibility but at the end of the day it mightn’t have been their fault - molluscs are just risky like that!

@gofibrogofibrogo DH and I went for a (very expensive) meal at a restaurant owned/managed by a famous chef. It was a set menu, with no choice (unless you were a vegetarian/vegan). The first course was soup, with one poached oyster in it. And that one oyster made me really ill. DH wasn’t ill, so he didn’t believe it could be food poisoning. But I knew that even if was a bug of some sort, that the restaurant needed to know.

This is how the restaurant handled it. I contacted them to explain how ill I had been. They immediately refunded the cost of the entire meal (over £300!) and then contacted the necessary authorities.

Some weeks later we were copied into a letter from the authority, telling us what had happened, and that it was down to some kind of outbreak/issue at an oyster fishery (not sure if that’s the right term), which had affected several people in the restaurant, but that it had all been dealt with. With many apologies.

To try and brush it off is not how issues like this should be dealt with. There’s a reason why hygiene is taken so seriously in restaurants!

Most restaurants really don't give a shit about whether people get food poisoning (exception being Michelin starred places or those with a lot of reputation to lose). If you see the type of staff who work in the kitchen and the things they do you probably would never eat out again.

Which is why every restaurant has a food hygiene rating - which has to be displayed at the front of the restaurant.

Food hygiene ratings

It’s not just Michelin starred places that have to do this!

I never order a platter only individual dishes like lobster, scallops or prawns. Do the smell test and look at the produce on the plate.

I also only go to seafood restaurants near the sea and fish ports never order seafood inland.

Platters are a breeding ground of bacteria imo.

Thanks for all the responses. Just to answer a couple of questions...

I eat seafood and shellfish regularly, never had a problem before.

It was a 4* hotel restaurant right on the coast, everything smelled fine and tasted ok.

@BIWI Exactly! I understand there's a risk with all seafood and was very reasonable in my email, it's the fact they brushed it off in such a shitty gaslighty tone that's annoyed me. I think env health should be informed regardless, just in case there is a pattern or other customers have been affected elsewhere.

I'd have been happy if they'd replied "sorry you had a reaction, our procedures are top notch but the nature of shellfish means that sometimes you can be unlucky, get well soon"! Instead of "liar liar pants on fire you must have stomach flu!"

The grit is unlikely to be the issue, mussels and oysters often have residue in them. But given the effluent that surrounds our coast line, I’d not eat any shellfish.
You also only need one bad one and you’re scuppered.
also without evidence it’s impossible to know for sure it was the whelk / bivalve / crustacean you devoured or if it’s a gastric bug, so I can understand the restaurant’s response. It probably was the seafood 🍤🦞, but unfortunately that’s a risk you take when eating it.
hope you feel better soon.

Never eat an oyster or mussel without an R in the month! Remember this please!

What's the logic behind this? I'm intrigued! I was only 3 days out of April so obviously just missed the cut off!

I think it’s that the colder months have an R in it so safer to have them from the cold waters