Would you like to try some North Korean cuisine? Are you a fan of ginseng wine or kimchi? Do you not have a problem with the money going to the North Korean government? Then Pyongyang restaurant is the place for you!
Pyongyang restaurant is an international restaurant chain run by the repressive and brutal government of North Korea. There are over 130 restaurants spread throughout Asia, from Cambodia to China, to thailand, and many more countries!
The restaurants are technically illegal under UN sanctions, but most countries haven't enforced this. One way North Korea gets around this is by partnering with local people in the countries that they operate in.
The staff at these restaurants are handpicked and selected by the government for their beauty, artistic abilities, and height, and are screened three generations back for their loyalty to the state.
When they aren't busy serving you, they are usually on stage in traditional clothing singing and dancing for the customers.
For the staff, the restaurant is more like a prison though. They are forced to live above the restaurant, and aren't allowed to move freely through the city that they live in. In 2016, 13 waitresses escaped from a restaurant in China and defected to South Korea.
The food at these restaurants is actually very similar to most other South Korean restaurants with only a few dishes on the menu being unique to North Korea, such as Pyongyang cold noodles and Taedonggang beer.
So why is a government known for its development of nuclear weapons and operating concentration camps running upscale restaurants?
One reason is to expose foreigners to a bit of North Korean culture. By showing the customers fancy restaurants with beautiful women and good food, they hope to convince people that North Korea isn't such a bad place, and is in fact friendly and prosperous.
And then there is the fact that the North Korean regime is in desperate need of foreign currency! Their own currency the North Korean Won is basically useless as no one outside of the country accepts it as a form of payment. North Korea obviously has a hard time to get access to other currencies, as almost all their trading partners are prohibited from trading with them, because of international sanctions.
The Pyonyang restaurants are a part of North Korea's strategy to increase the country's foreign currency reserves. Each restaurant is run by a middleman that must send back a fixed amount every month to North Korea, which is usually between $10.000 t0 $30.000 depending on the size of the restaurant. And if there are any problems, the North Korean government will shut down the restaurant and force all the employees to return home.
One such case happened in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. It was the first Pyongyang restaurant in the west, and it didn't last long. The restaurant was shut down in less than a year, after the North Koreans and the Dutch co-owners had too many disagreements and accused each other of sabotaging the business. It reopened a little more than a year later, but was again shut down not long after.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article!