To evaluate the persistence of infectious virus after heating, mussels contaminated with a rotavirus strain were prepared following the French recipe moules marinieres(mariner’s mussels). Rotavirus was then quantified by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and a cell culture infectivity assay. Results showed the persistence of infectious virus after 3 min of cooking. After 5 min, when no infectious virus could be detected, the RT-qPCR approach showed a 1-log decrease compared with concentrations detected after 1 min of cooking.