Restaurant Negligence
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently imposed new regulations on sous vide cooking, forcing many restaurants to scramble to update their cooking methods that comply with the new laws. The cooking method, which requires meats to be vacuum sealed and slow cooked at very low temperatures, worried city health officials that bacteria growth may be occurring if exact methods were not used and harm anyone who may be consuming the food. Now the Department of Health requires restaurants who participate in the sous vide method of cooking to file their preparation plans with the city in a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plan, but there are a few establishments that have yet to do so, and are now being shut down until they comply.
About a dozen restaurants have had plans approved, said Elliott Marcus, an associate commissioner who oversees food safety, and another dozen are in the application process. Some restaurants hire consultants to draw up plans, which must adhere to health department regulations on “reduced oxygen packaging” cooking. These include step-by-step specifications that regulate how the food is packaged, what equipment is used to cook it, what internal temperature the food must reach, and how it is chilled. The rules require cooks to use expensive water immersion units or combination convection ovens and industrial vacuum-packaging machines. They also call for detailed labeling, and they ban vacuum-sealing fish unless it is frozen.
A restaurant at the Carlton Hotel named Cafe at Country was closed last week in part because of their improper sous vide methods. The chef of the restaurant was warned in 2006 that he needed to file his sous vide plan for approval, but never followed through. Would this be considered negligence on the part of the restaurant should you become ill after consuming improperly prepared food? Jeff Lichtman, senior partner at Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman had this to say on the issue:
Unfortunately, inspectors have found several New York City restaurants are in violation of health and sanitation codes. Consumers are even more vulnerable in restaurants that use Sous Vide cooking techniques. Therefore, it is good news that city officials are keeping the pressure on restaurants to follow the strict procedures required for such techniques. New York consumers put their good faith in restaurants to follow proper health regulations, but if a restaurant is negligent New Yorkers have recourse in the court system.
