First it was the Fat Duck, and now it’s Noma – it seems that being rated as the world’s best restaurant is not enough to stop diners from falling ill due to hygiene problems.

More than four-fifths of diners at Noma in Copenhagen fell ill in a five-day period in mid-February, according to a report by Danish food inspectors yesterday.

Famed for its dishes such as deep-fried reindeer moss and a flowerpot with radishes planted in hazelnut soil, Noma has sparked a boom in Nordic cuisine and has been rated by Restaurant magazine as the world’s best place to eat for the past three years.

Head chef René Redzepi is known for foraging for ingredients by the Danish seaside.

Noma is one of the world’s most exclusive restaurants, offering a 10-course tasting menu costing DKr1,500 (€201) to 40 guests at lunch and dinner. But 63 out of the 78 diners who ate at the Michelin three-starred Copenhagen restaurant from February 12th to 16th fell ill with vomiting and diarrhoea after contracting a norovirus.

A kitchen worker also became ill on February 15th, but his email that evening to managers was read only three days later because of the weekend.

The inspectors blamed poor hand hygiene and a lack of hot running water in one of the kitchen’s sinks. They also issued a warning as Noma failed to react quickly enough to emails from guests and a kitchen worker saying they had fallen ill.

Noma said it was in talks with the diners about compensation and had taken steps to improve procedures. – ( Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013)

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