North Korea has opened a string of state-run bulgogi restaurants across the country since September 2026. The glossy venues offer a striking display of abundance from a country still known for chronic food shortages. Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, has given the openings prominent coverage. Its photos show bright lighting, modern interiors and neatly arranged tables of grilled meat.
The rollout began on Sept. 7 with the Kanggye Bulgogi Restaurant in Jagang province. New restaurants followed in Pyongsong, South Pyongan province, on Sept. 8 and Sinuiju, North Pyongan province, on Sept. 9. Hamhung in South Hamgyong province opened on Sept. 25, and Chongjin in North Hamgyong province opened on Sept. 29. Wonsan in Kangwon province followed on Sept. 30, with Sariwon in North Hwanghae province on Oct. 1. Haeju in South Hwanghae province came next on Oct. 2, and Pyongyang’s Moranbong Bulgogi Restaurant held its completion ceremony on Oct. 8.
According to state media, the restaurants serve bulgogi, the marinated grilled meat popular across the Korean Peninsula. Menus also include cold noodles, starch noodles, soft drinks and barbecue platters for four or six people. The platters feature beef brisket, lamb ribs, pork neck, pork ribs, smoked sausage, grilled pineapple and toast. Pork shoulder and beef tongue are among the other cuts offered for the grill. The menus reportedly list about 40 kinds of bulgogi and some 200 other dishes, including salmon belly sashimi and foie gras burgers.
Kim Jong Un’s regime faces pressing demands to shore up its rule and revive a struggling economy. Pouring resources into large specialty restaurants at such a moment means more than expanding the public catering network. That network is the state system of restaurants, canteens and snack bars that feeds North Koreans outside the home. So the question is why Pyongyang has chosen this moment to open bulgogi restaurants nationwide.
The first motive, in my view, is political, because the restaurants put a visible face on Kim’s “people-first politics.” The slogan casts the leader as personally devoted to the welfare of ordinary North Koreans. Serving a traditional dish in modern, mass-market settings signals that the supreme leader cares even about what people eat. The project also mirrors showcase leisure facilities built in defiance of international sanctions. Examples include the Masikryong Ski Resort, the Mirim Riding Club and a string of water parks.
At the Ninth Party Congress earlier this year, Kim admitted that the Sepho livestock base had failed. That project was a vast grassland ranching complex in Kangwon province built during the 2010s. Kim instead held up the Samgwang Livestock Farm, which opened in North Pyongan province in February, as a new model. He said the farm should help lift the country’s animal husbandry to world standards.
Kim is also pushing his Regional Development 20×10 Policy, launched in January 2024. The plan calls for building modern factories in 20 cities and counties each year for a decade. Its goal is to narrow the yawning gap between Pyongyang and the provinces. Opening modern dining venues in provincial hubs appears to belong to the same drive. The new restaurants give the regime fresh achievements to publicize well beyond the capital.
The economic logic follows from the steady spread of markets across North Korea in recent decades. Marketization has boosted the spending power of donju and an emerging urban middle class. Donju are the newly wealthy entrepreneurs who built fortunes in the country’s informal markets. Their appetite for dining out has grown along with their wealth. Large restaurants run directly by the state give the authorities a way to tap that spending. They pull money circulating in private hands back into the national budget.
The restaurants also serve a broader effort to rein in the private economy. The state wants to steer cash away from private lending and person-to-person trade and into state-run commerce. Doing so would tighten the government’s grip on the money supply.
Abroad, the restaurants project the image of a “normal state” with prosperous cities. That image indirectly makes the case that sanctions against North Korea are not working. Branding bulgogi as a signature dish may also lay groundwork for tourism aimed at foreign visitors. The Wonsan Kalma Culinary Festival, held in September, supports this reading. The festival took place at the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area, an east coast beach resort that opened in 2025.
Where will North Korea’s bulgogi restaurants get their meat?
Whether North Korea produces enough meat to keep these restaurants supplied is another matter, and the available data suggest it does not. South Korea’s national statistics agency publishes an annual compendium called Major Statistical Indicators of North Korea. Its 2025 edition shows pork output peaking at about 170,000 metric tons in 2005. By 2023, pork production had fallen by roughly 60,000 tons to about 110,000 tons a year.
Rabbit meat, by contrast, has risen steadily since the 2000s. Output reached about 150,000 tons in 2023, likely because rabbits eat grass rather than commercial feed. Chicken, duck and goat production averaged about 30,000, 11,000 and 13,000 tons a year, respectively.
Beef barely registers in the figures because North Korea classifies cattle as farm machinery and bans unauthorized slaughter. Only cattle that die of old age or in accidents reportedly reach the food supply, and in limited amounts.
Total meat production has hovered between roughly 320,000 and 360,000 tons a year since 2010. Output averaged about 330,000 tons a year between 2000 and 2023. Spread across about 26 million people, that works out to roughly 12.7 kilograms per person each year. That is far too little to sustain a nationwide chain of barbecue restaurants.
Imports will have to cover much of the shortfall in North Korea’s meat supply. Russian meat exports to North Korea were negligible until a few years ago. Trade picked up after Moscow and Pyongyang upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership during the war in Ukraine. Agroexport, an export promotion agency under Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture, tracks these shipments. It says Russia broadened its agricultural exports to North Korea in 2024 and 2025.
Pork by-products began flowing in earnest during that period, and as of January 2026, North Korea had imported more than 760 tons of Russian pork by-products. Most were cheap and easily stored items such as pig’s feet, offal and frozen meat.
China remains North Korea’s largest source of meat by a wide margin. Chinese customs data put the North’s official meat imports at roughly $2 million to $5 million a year. Frozen chicken and pork make up most of the total, along with sausages, canned meat and other processed products. Smuggling across the China-North Korea border likely adds a sizable volume on top of those figures.
Even as new restaurants keep opening, the country’s domestic meat supply remains in poor shape. Grain is scarce even for people, so farmers cannot give livestock enough compound feed. Poorly fed animals fail to grow properly, which limits the quality of the meat they produce. As a result, high-quality cuts suitable for bulgogi are probably very rare.
At the Samgwang farm’s opening ceremony this year, Kim laid out five priorities for the livestock sector. They are high-yield breeds, a reliable feed supply, scientific animal management, veterinary disease control and digital technology. These policies would need to take hold nationwide, not just in showcase regions, to raise meat output. Under continuing sanctions and a closed economy, however, I believe North Korea will struggle to solve this alone. How the new restaurants operate, and whether the state can keep their grills stocked, deserves close attention.
Kim Kwan Ho is a senior researcher at the Rural Research Institute of the Korea Rural Community Corporation, a South Korean public agency that manages farmland, irrigation and rural infrastructure. The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent the official position of the Korea Rural Community Corporation. Opinions expressed by outside contributors do not necessarily reflect the editorial direction of Daily NK.