The owner of a South Korean Michelin-starred restaurant is facing one year in jail for garnishing a palate-cleansing sorbet with black ants “to add a sour taste”, local media said.<\/p>\n
Seoul prosecutors requested the prison term for the anonymous owner of the unnamed eatery at a Monday court hearing for violating food safety regulations, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Under South Korean law, only 10 insect species are approved for human consumption, including grasshoppers and brown mealworm larvae.<\/p>\n
But the restaurant, which holds two prized Michelin stars, is accused of serving the forbidden insects imported from Thailand and the US, a food safety ministry statement said.<\/p>\n
Local media said the ants were served atop a sorbet.<\/p>\n
Authorities launched their probe last year, according to a food ministry statement, claiming the chef topped the icy desserts with “three to five” ants “to add a sour taste”.<\/p>\n
He made around 12,000 sales worth 120 million won over nearly four years until January 2025, the statement said.<\/p>\n
One evidence photograph released by the ministry showed a can labelled “Cuisine Black Ants” in a round tin.<\/p>\n
In addition to the prison term, prosecutors asked the Seoul Western District Court to issue a 20 million won fine, local outlet Newsis news agency reported.<\/p>\n
The defendant’s lawyers argued the ant-topped confections were served only to customers who had consented in advance, the outlet said.<\/p>\n
“I apologise for this incident, which arose from my failure to fully understand the relevant regulations,” the defendant reportedly said in his closing statement.<\/p>\n
The court is due to deliver its ruling in early September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of a South Korean Michelin-starred restaurant is facing one year in jail for garnishing a palate-cleansing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-562298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}