Hanoi Metropole chef shares insight into Kim Jong-un’s appetite for luxury cuisine
- Executive chef Paul Smart’s summit challenge to feed North Korea’s leader and US President Donald Trump was cut short, but he still gained some insight into Kim’s tastes.
Paul Smart, executive chef at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, was disappointed the lunch he prepared for Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un never saw the light of day, but the experience still offered him a glimpse of the North Korean leader’s culinary preferences.
In an interview with state-run China News Service’s China News Weekly on Sunday, Smart described how both sides brought their own kitchen staff to help prepare the leaders’ meals.
Smart described the North Koreans as “mysterious, but very professional”, and said they worked meticulously and would taste dishes prepared by Smart’s team an hour before the banquet to make sure the food was safe.
They brought all their own ingredients, including Wagyu beef, kimchi, foie gras, ginseng and persimmon punch.
Smart’s time with the Korean chefs hinted at Kim’s taste for luxurious cuisine, and they told him that caviar, lobster and foie gras were among his favourite foods.
“He really likes to dine and experience cuisine for what it is,” Smart said.
Trump and Kim did sit down for a dinner of steak and kimchi-stuffed pear on February 27, the first day of their summit.
But the lunch planned for the following day, of foie gras and snow fish, was cancelled after the talks fell through.
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Although Smart had considered injecting a Vietnamese flavour into the menu, he ruled out such a move after “careful consideration”.
“I tried to keep the taste neutral and make delicious, simple foods that suited both tastes,” he said, adding that he served predominantly Western food to the two leaders.
Although preparing summit meals was a new challenge for Smart, he said the American and North Korean chefs “had a very pleasant cooperation. It went well”.
Smart told AFP earlier this month that “President Trump wanted his steak well done, but Kim preferred his steak medium-rare to rare, very rare.”
Kim's preference for bloodier meat showed an appreciation for quality, he said.
When the two leaders made their first meeting in June last year after nearly seven decades of hostility between their nations, the main course at dinner was beef short-rib confit served with potato dauphinoise with an option of sweet and sour crispy pork with Yangzhou fried rice and home-made XO chilli sauce.
When he met South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April last year Kim, who is thought to have been educated in Switzerland, was offered a rösti, a Swiss potato dish.
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While Trump’s appetite for fast food is no secret, Kim’s diet has been the subject of speculation.
Previous reports have suggested he is fond of cheese, Emmental in particular, and in 2014 he had tried to send three North Korean cheesemaking experts to train at France’s National Dairy Industry College, only for it to reject the proposal.
Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese national who claimed to be personal chef to Kim’s family between 1989 and 2002, has previously said the younger Kim shared his father Kim Jong-il’s appetite for sushi, particularly toro tuna.
