You may have seen news articles recently about the wave of illnesses from oysters at LA restaurants:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/us/raw-oyster-illnesses-california.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
My fiancée and 6 of her friends went to Loreto in Frogtown recently. 4 of them had the oysters, and got horribly sick. She had the worst case of food poisoning I have ever seen, and was ill for over a week. One of the women in her party wound up in the hospital. This is not hyperbole – they were EXTREMELY sickened by the oysters at Loreto.
The restaurant does not provide any contact information. When we finally dug up the manager’s email and reached out, he sent a flip response with nothing in the way of acknowledgement or apology. There was zero follow up.
If you look on their Yelp reviews, there are at least 2 other recent parties who have reported very similar experiences, so there may presumably be more that went unreported. I love oysters, but will be avoiding them for a while, and we’ll definitely never eat at Loreto again.
I’m not posting this to trash the restaurant, but as a genuine PSA, because she got SO sick, and got the brush off from Loreto. That it’s continued to happen to other customers shows that they don’t take the issue seriously.
We’ve reported this place to the LA County Department of Public Health. If you’ve been made ill by the food at Loreto, I encourage you to do the same.
by marvin_bartley
22 Comments
Pretty safe to say everyone should just avoid oysters altogether for a while no matter where you’re at.
Definitely irresponsible of the owner to not even acknowledge there’s an outbreak right now with oysters! Thanks for sharing, will be avoiding Loreto. Hope your friends feel better soon.
Since this place is a Mariscos spot they are most likely getting oysters from Mexico which have had an issue lately, getting around 200 reported cases of food illness. Not really the restaurant’s fault unless they keep serving after knowing about the issue. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/us/raw-oyster-illnesses-california.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I’ve heard this elsewhere! If true (and I’m inclined to believe it is) this absolutely should end of Loreto. A restaurants first responsibility is to NOT make people sick. Hopefully the city does the right thing and shuts em down for good.
Went here in September of last year and had a very bad seafood experience.
Our entire party got rock hard bites of octopus. When we brought it to a manager’s attention, he referenced how a lot of people had been sending it back that night…Why not pull it from service, then?
Stay away from oysters right now and for the foreseeable future. Anyone know if Atlantic or PNW oysters are affected too?
A friend of a friend almost died from kidney failure caused by eating a raw oyster last month. I don’t know where he got it, but I’m never eating a raw oyster again. Not worth it.
I’m definitely leery of raw oysters at the moment, but I did have an afternoon free yesterday so I stopped into Found Oyster and had those wonderful broiled oysters with espelette butter. Off topic, I know
Loreto just kind of sucks in general. I went a few months ago, and it was so dark in there that I could barely see what I was eating. They sat me at the bar with a direct view of the kitchen, and I could see this tweaky member of the staff constantly adjusting his crotch. It all felt very questionable from a hygiene perspective. Lingua Franca’s not particularly good either, Frogtown should have just been left alone
My girlfriend and I got terrible food poisoning here in late september
Got super sick from oysters about a decade ago. I still can barely look at the things.
I know people love oysters but they’re a risky thing to eat. I say this as someone who had a listeria bacterial infection last month from something I ate in Mexico. I was extremely sick and it almost turned into listeria meningitis, which can be fatal. Thankfully I got antibiotics. But even with antibiotics it took me three weeks to feel completely better. Be careful, y’all!
Oysters are fucked right now in general, warmer than normal ocean temps increasing the amount of bacteria in them
L.A. Health Dept has been warning about this for a couple of weeks now. Maybe we have restaurants that are not paying attention I guess.
[http://lapublichealth.org/phcommon/public/media/mediapubhpdetail.cfm?prid=4614](http://lapublichealth.org/phcommon/public/media/mediapubhpdetail.cfm?prid=4614)
It’s required to be posted at any restaurant serving raw seafood and it’s not a joke.
**Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions.**
Oyster food poisoning instances will just increase due to climate change, unfortunately.
How recently did you go? Before or after the news about issues with oysters?
I think Loreto is one of the best spots LA has had in a decade, and I’m sorry about your friend. Every bit of fish and seafood I’ve had there has been stellar.
They should NOT have brushed you off though. Osyters can make you incredibly sick.
Back in July I ate at Loreto with two friends — I can’t remember if we ordered oysters but we definitely got a few crudos and other raw dishes. They both had horrible, horrible cases of food poisoning exactly as you described it — sick for a week, the sickest they’d ever been etc. I somehow came out unscathed and have been wanting to go back because I did enjoy the food, but reading this I’ll definitely reconsider. Seems like they have an issue there and I’ll definitely report to the dept. of public health!
Oh baby I like it raw. Oh baby i like it rawwww. Keep it east coast 😉
also ate oysters here in the fall and me and another person from our group got Really bad food poisoning ⛔️
Thank you for reporting it to public health. They really do follow up and help prevent future problems later!