MOUNT DORA, FL. When a state inspector walked into Lampu Steakhouse & Sushi on US Highway 441 on October 5, they found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, a restaurant with no written employee health policy, and staff who were not required to report their own illness symptoms before handling what goes on your plate.
The inspector documented eight high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical violations stand out on their own. Two separate citations, one for improper storage or labeling and a second for improper identification, storage, or use of toxic substances, indicate that chemicals capable of contaminating food were not being managed as the law requires. At a restaurant that serves raw fish, that is not a theoretical concern.
The illness-related violations compound each other. The restaurant had no written employee health policy, meaning there was no formal mechanism to prevent a sick worker from coming in. Separately, employees were cited for not reporting illness symptoms. Both violations existed at the same time, in the same kitchen.
Inspectors also cited improper handwashing technique, which is distinct from simply failing to wash hands. It means workers were going through the motions without removing pathogens. And the restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, a requirement at any establishment serving sushi or undercooked proteins.
The shellfish citation adds another layer. Without proper shell stock identification records, there is no way to trace where oysters, clams, or mussels came from if a customer gets sick.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting violations are the ones that should concern anyone who ate at Lampu in the days before this inspection. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads directly from infected food workers to customers. A written health policy exists specifically to create a documented expectation that sick employees stay home. Without one, and without a requirement to report symptoms, there is no barrier between an ill worker and the food they are preparing.
The handwashing citation matters because technique is where the protection actually happens. Inspectors do not cite improper technique unless they observed it. The violation means pathogens were surviving on workers' hands even after a wash attempt.
The chemical violations carry a different kind of risk. Mislabeled or improperly stored chemicals can contaminate food directly, and they can be mistaken for food-safe substances. At a kitchen that also handles raw shellfish and raw fish for sushi, the margin for error is already narrow.
The shellfish traceability failure is specific to this restaurant's menu. Shellfish are among the highest-risk foods served raw or lightly cooked, and the identification records exist so that health officials can trace an outbreak back to a specific harvest location. Without those records, that traceability is gone.
The Longer Record
This was not a bad day at an otherwise clean restaurant. State records show 31 inspections on file for Lampu Steakhouse & Sushi, with 384 total violations accumulated across that history.
The October 5 inspection fits squarely into a pattern. In May 2026, inspectors found eight high-severity violations and five intermediate violations. In December 2024, they found nine high-severity violations. In May 2024, they found ten. Going back through 2023, no inspection on record came back clean.
Lampu Steakhouse & Sushi: Recent Inspection History
The restaurant was emergency-closed once before, in April 2018, after inspectors found roach activity. It reopened the next day. Since that closure, the high-severity violations have continued to accumulate inspection after inspection, year after year.
The categories that appeared in October, illness policies, handwashing, chemical storage, shellfish traceability, are not infrastructure problems that require construction to fix. They are operational decisions. Records show they have not been corrected across multiple inspection cycles.
On October 5, 2026, a state inspector documented eight high-severity violations at Lampu Steakhouse & Sushi in Mount Dora, including improperly stored toxic chemicals and no mechanism to keep sick employees out of the kitchen. The restaurant served customers that day, and it was open the next day too.
