Pizza exists in North Korea but is largely a luxury for the elite rather than an everyday food. Its introduction began when the leadership imported Italian expertise: in 1997 Italian chefs including Ermanno Furlanis were brought to Pyongyang to train local cooks, and in 2008 North Korean chefs visited Naples and Rome. North Korea opened its first dedicated pizzeria on Kwangbok Street in December 2008, equipped with an Italian oven and imported flour, butter and cheese; the restaurant offered traditional pizzas alongside other Italian dishes and was managed by Kim Sang-Soon. Training was meticulous and conservative, with instructors reporting students who recorded trivial details and learned technique without embracing culinary creativity.
Pyongyang now hosts multiple venues serving pizza - Pyolmuri Café, a Corital Italian-North Korean joint venture, and Italy Pizza on Mirae Scientists Street among them - and as of 2021 five restaurants served pizza. Prices in 2018 ran roughly $5-$10, putting pizza out of reach for most citizens and making it a dish for elites, diplomats and foreign visitors; a single pizza could equal a middle-ranking official’s monthly wage. Menus mix conventional and local toppings (kimchi pizza appears alongside standard choices), pizzerias sometimes feature live entertainment, and Western-style restaurants are concentrated in cities where wealthier classes live. Cultural responses include smuggled instructional DVDs satirizing pizza’s exclusivity and offering locally feasible recipes.
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