Chef reveals Kim Jong-un's appetite for foie gras, caviar and lobster
The executive chef at Hanoi’s luxury Metropole hotel has reportedly revealed new details about Kim Jong-un’s appetite for luxurious meals of foie gras, caviar and lobster.
Australian Paul Smart, who earned his chef stripes at the London Ritz and once cooked for Queen Elizabeth faced the high-pressured task of catering to the divergent tastes of Kim and Donald Trump, the US president, when they met for their second summit in Vietnam last month.
In an interview with the state-run China News Weekly, and reported in the South China Morning Post, Mr Smart disclosed that the North Koreans brought their own ingredients, including Wagyu beef, kimchi, foie gras, ginseng and persimmon punch to his kitchen.
They also brought their own staff to work alongside the Australian and his team.
He described them as “mysterious but very professional”, adding that they worked meticulously and would taste dishes an hour before they were served to their leader to make sure that the food was safe.
Mr Trump and Kim sat down to their first exquisite meal of marinated tender sirloin, served with kimchi fermented inside a pear, on the eve of their summit.
Mr Smart told AFP in an earlier interview that “President Trump wanted his steak well done, but Kim preferred his steak medium-rare to rare, very rare,” adding that the choice of bloodier meat showed an appreciation for quality.
He said that in his cooking he had “tried to keep the taste neutral and make delicious simple foods that suited both tastes.”
The summit failed on its second day before Mr Smart was able to showcase his full range of talents with a carefully prepared lunch of foie gras, snowfish and candied ginseng, but his interaction with the North Korean cooks gave him some rare insights into closely guarded secrets about Kim’s lifestyle.
The North Koreans hinted at Kim’s preference for fine cuisine, such as caviar and lobster, despite restrictions on the import of such luxury items under sanctions designed to curb his nuclear weapons programme.
Previous reports have suggested that the North Korean leader is fond of cheese, particularly Emmental, perhaps stemming from his childhood growing up in Europe.
Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese chef who claimed to work directly for the Kim family between 1989 and 2002 has also claimed that Kim Jong-un shared his father’s passion for sushi, particularly made from fatty tuna.
The day before the Hanoi summit, Dutch customs officials seized 90,000 bottles of vodka believed to heading on a Chinese-owned container ship for the North Korean regime.
However, Kim and his elite, do not appear to be suffering from a lack of luxuries under stiff international sanctions.
Glimpses of high level dinners during the past year of diplomatic détente have shown free-flowing foreign alcohol, although it has been suggested that this could have been sourced from an abundant wine cellar stocked before the European Union slapped sanctions on alcohol imports in 2017.
Kim Jong-un has long been believed to have expensive tastes. Prior to sanctions, alcohol imports reportedly doubled to £20 million in the early years of the young leader’s premiership, with champagne seeing a sizeable leap.
Meanwhile in Pyongyang’s downtown Gwangbok department store, the monied can avail themselves of a wide range of French or Italian wines or readily available Scottish whisky.
