- A gallon of ammonia was spilled in the basement of a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Illinois, local emergency services said.
- One person was taken to hospital in a "stable" condition, Naperville's deputy fire chief said.
A person was taken to hospital in a "stable" condition after about a gallon of ammonia spilled in the basement of a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in a city in the suburbs of Chicago, local emergency services said.
On Monday night, staff from Naperville's fire department arrived at Ramsay's Kitchen in response to a call to find "approximately one gallon of ammonia spilled and off-gassing in the basement of the restaurant," Phil Giannattasio, the fire department's deputy chief, said in a release.
The restaurant's staff had already alerted other staff and diners and evacuated the restaurant before the fire department arrived, he said.
One civilian was transported to a nearby hospital and was "in stable condition," Giannattasio said, without giving further details.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that ammonia can cause "corrosive injury" when it comes into contact with moist tissues such as the eyes, throat, and lungs. Ammonia is used in fertilizers as well as in some industrial refrigerators.
Hazmat technicians from the fire department removed the ammonia from the location within 30 minutes of arrival using specialized absorbent materials, Giannattasio said.
"The spill was contained to the basement of the restaurant, and no further hazardous conditions were found," Giannattasio said. Fire department crew waited on the scene until later that night when all the fumes were ventilated, the site was cleaned up, and it was safe for staff to return, he said.
Business Insider did not immediately receive a response to a request for comment from Gordon Ramsay Restaurants North America, sent outside regular US working hours.
The Ramsay's Kitchen location had been inspected by the DuPage County Health Department in August. Inspectors reported 13 violations, including the presence of fruit flies, insufficient lighting in the basement, and some items like raw eggs and glasses being stored incorrectly. The report doesn't refer to any violations involving ammonia.
Ramsay has a sprawling restaurant empire, operating venues bearing his name across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia. Like many celebrity chefs, he is not directly involved in the cooking in the vast majority of his restaurants.
Ramsay opened his first wholly-owned restaurant in Chelsea, London, in 1998. The Scottish TV chef originally opened most of his North American restaurants in partnerships with Caesar's Entertainment, but began opening some through Gordon Ramsay North America in 2019.
Ramsay now has 18 restaurants in the US, including four under the Ramsay's Kitchen brand. At the Naperville location, soup costs $12 and sandwiches start at $20. A portion of beef Wellington, a British classic, costs $69.
Squatters have recently taken over one of Ramsay's restaurants in London and turned it into what they described as a community art café.