A luxury dog meat restaurant is being built in an exclusive area of the North Korean capital after being approved by Kim Jong-un who is pushing "healthier eating", it is reported.
Occupying a prime river bank location, the ‘Dog Meat Delicacy House’ will be near the well-known Okryugwan noodle restaurant in Pyonyang.
It is believed that the opening of the restaurant and others similar that offer dog meat as a delicacy is part of a drive by the state to improve people’s diets.
But it comes as Kim opened a major political conference dedicated to agriculture this week with claims that the country is facing a famine.
South Korean experts estimate that North Korea is short around one million tonnes of grain, 20% of its annual demand, after the pandemic disrupted both farming and imports from China.
Recent unconfirmed reports say that North Koreans have been dying of hunger.
Most analysts say North Korea’s food situation today is nowhere near the extremes of the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine but some say its food problems are at their worst since Kim took power in 2011, after Covid restrictions further shocked an economy battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions imposed over Kim’s nuclear programme.
But while many appear to be facing food shortages, Rossiyskaya Gazeta is reporting the new high-end dog meat restaurant and published a photo of the building design.
It depicts a traditional North Korean building on stilts above the water.
The new restaurant would mean an important use of public funds and it is likely that Kim would visit it as he has done with other eateries in the area.
He used the Okryugwan noodle house and Taedonggang seafood restaurant, in September, 2018, to entertain the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, reported NK News.
He also approved the building of the new dog meat restaurant when speaking on state television in 2021.
And Kim talked of “improving” people’s diets when he discussed the building of another dog meat restaurant in the northeastern city of Chongjin, that was completed a couple of years ago.
Dog meat is considered a national dish in North Korea with many restaurants existing while cooking contests take place that use all parts of the animal, and can be shown on state television.
