WASHINGTON — Following a six-day shutdown due to a salmonella outbreak that may have sickened as many as 220 people, the upscale Mediterranean-style restaurant Fig & Olive in D.C. has been cleared to reopen.
“We have eliminated what we believe to have been the possible source of illness of the individuals impacted to date,” says Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the D.C. Department of Health.
The restaurant is blamed for at least 10 confirmed cases of salmonella. At least 60 other people in five states and D.C. have become ill, and there are another 150 possible cases being investigated, although inspectors were unable to detect Salmonella on the premises.
“We found it in the people. We weren’t able to isolate it from any of the food items we took from the food establishment,” Nesbitt says.
Based on interviews with sickened individuals, suspicion has focused on two menu items — truffle fries and a mushroom croquet — offered at the restaurant located in downtown Washington.
“Those two particular items are two items that will no longer be served at the facility,” Nesbitt says.
In order to reopen, the restaurant has destroyed it’s food inventory, sanitized the premises, corrected violations found in recent inspections and agreed to boost staff training in food handling.
“We were not able to isolate to a particular ingredient in those foods,” Nesbitt says, but she says health inspectors raised questions about the temperature controls and the handling of the truffle fries and the mushroom croquet.
“What we discovered … were a number of things that we wanted to have corrected, especially as it related to the food-handling practices. At this point, this particular food establishment has met all of the things that we wanted to have satisfied,” Nesbitt says.
