“Let them eat pizza”

My reader may be familiar with the retort “let them eat cake’ attributed (probably wrongly) to Queen Marie Antoinette. This retort was made on hearing that French peasants had no bread and showed the speaker’s obliviousness to the condition of the people, especially given that cake (or brioche) was actually more expensive than bread.

Many will know that the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il had a taste for the good things of life and lapped it up while millions, less fortunate than he, died. He was famous for a life of wine, women and song. Until he gave it up on medical advice, he was the largest consumer of Hennessy in the world. His foreign film collection was one of the largest in the world.

At one point he developed what was to be a lifelong love for pizza and decreed that his people should have pizza (benevolent and loving as he was). Let them eat pizza!

In the late 1990s a team of Italian chefs was flown in to set up a pizza restaurant in Pyongyang and train army officers and others in the art of making pizza. It must have come as a shock to the trainees to have Italian chefs train them rather than Kim Jong-il himself who, like his father, was famous for his ability to give ‘on the spot guidance’ on virtually anything to his people. The story goes that those foreigners selected to cook pizza in the Dear Leader’s marble palace first had to undergo x-rays, brain scans and urine and blood sampling.

It took ten years of heroic struggle on the part of Kim Jong-il before he was satisfied with the quality of the pizza produced in North Korea. At that point, in 2009, he authorised the opening of this restaurant.

While Kim Jong-il decreed that the people should have pizza very few could afford it – all the ingredients were, as they still are, shipped in from Italy. Today only the elite and tourists eat pizza in this, North Korea’s only pizza restaurant, very originally named “Pizza Restaurant”!

The restaurant is located in a bland building with no advertising (like every other business).

However, on entering the restaurant we were immediately transported to Italy with columns, brick walls, red table clothes and all the expected accoutrements and ambiance, right down to that unique smell of cooking pizza. Our taste buds were ignited as we awaited our pre-ordered pizza’s. The selection was similar to what you would find in a pizza restaurant anywhere.

While service was a bit slow and the pizzas arrived sporadically, when they did turn up they were absolutely delicious and indeed some of the best pizzas I have eaten anywhere in the world. The restaurant also serves pasta, other Italian dishes and some Korean food for the non-adventurous.

There was off course a North Korean twist – our pizza was accompanied by beer or water (no problem there) and karaoke with our waitresses leading us in song.

This was, without a doubt, the best food we got in North Korea and an opportunity you should follow-up with your guides on arrival if not listed on your itinerary. Contrary to popular opinion, itineraries can often be changed. The experience did come at a supplement of Euro 10 per person – well worth it.

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This blog entry is one of a group (loop) of entries on The Rambling Wombat’s trip to Pyongyang, North Korea which I recommend you read in a particular order.  I suggest you continue with my next entry – Moranbong Theatre. If necessary, go to my Pyongyang introduction entry –  Pyongyang – A Capital City Unlike any Other – to start this loop at the beginning.

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