Take raw beef off menu: Public Health
Person complains after eating tartare, becoming sick
Ottawa Public Health is asking all restaurants within the city to immediately stop serving beef tartare after receiving a complaint from someone who got sick after eating the raw French dish at a local restaurant.
According to public health officials, the dish made of raw shredded beef, seasoned and topped with a raw egg, should never have been served because it is against foodsafety regulations and could contain bacteria and parasites that may make people sick.
“Under the regulations, raw meat products cannot be served to the public,” said Eric Leclair, a spokesman for Ottawa Public Health. “We have asked that the product not be served as it does not meet the regulations under the Health Protection and Promotion Act. At this time, the restaurateur is co-operating and has voluntarily stopped serving the product.”
While Ottawa Public Health is only investigating one area restaurant — it wouldn’t say which one — it’s asking all area restaurants to immediately remove the dish from their menus, should they be offering it.
“I’m sure that this dish is popular in areas of Europe, but it doesn’t meet the food-safety regulations we have in place in Ontario,” said Sherry Beadle, a manager of public health inspection at the city.
Stephen Beckta, proprietor of Beckta and its sister restaurants Play and Gezellig, said he had heard of Ottawa Public Health’s plea to remove the dish from local menus.
However, the news hasn’t travelled that quickly. The Wellington Street Gastropub, which offers a well-reviewed beef tartare on its menu, had not heard any objections from Ottawa Public Health. Nor had Michael Blackie, owner of NeXT in Stittsville, who said the dish was one of his restaurant’s most popular offerings.
“Just because one chef doesn’t know how to cook doesn’t mean we all don’t,” he said. “It’s goofy. They are always jumping to extremes.”
Blackie said if they remove beef tartare from menus they need to also remove the Italian version of the dish, carpaccio, as well as the Japanese version, sashimi, among other popular cultural delicacies that incorporate some sort of raw meat or egg.
Dozens of restaurants in Ottawa serve some variation of tartare.
Under Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act, all parts of ground meat (other than ground meat that contains poultry) must be cooked to reach an internal temperature of at least 71 C for at least 15 seconds. A food mixture containing poultry, egg, meat, or another hazardous food must be cooked to reach a temperature of at least 74 C for at least 15 seconds.