South Korean prosecutors on July 20, 2026 asked a court to send the owner of a two-Michelin-starred restaurant to prison for one year. The reason? The restaurant in Seoul's Gangnam district served dried ants on a sorbet dessert for about four years without government approval (The Guardian).

Prosecutors also asked for a 20 million won fine — about $15,000 USD — for the company that runs the restaurant. Both the owner and the company were charged under South Korea's Food Sanitation Act, which sets the rules for what can and cannot be served to customers. Breaking this law can carry up to five years in prison or a 50 million won fine. Yonhap news agency first reported the story (Yonhap).

The dish at the center of the case was a sorbet topped with dried ants imported from the United States and Thailand. Prosecutors say the restaurant started importing the ants in 2021 and served them as part of a 15-course tasting menu for about four years. The ant dessert was sold roughly 12,200 times, bringing in about 120 million won in total. Prosecutors estimated that around 49,000 ants were used.

The defense, led by attorney Seo Min-seok, disagreed with the prosecution's numbers. They argued that only about 60% of customers said yes to the ant topping when offered it. The restaurant serves a 15-course menu, and only a few of those dishes included ants.

South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety started looking into the restaurant after seeing mentions of the ant dishes in blog posts and social media. In South Korea, only 10 types of insects are legally allowed to be used as food, including grasshoppers, mealworms, and silkworm pupae. Ants are not on that list. If a business wants to use an insect that is not approved, it has to get temporary permission from the government first. A scientific review from 2024 lists seven recognized edible insect species in Korea, including rice grasshopper, silkworm, white river dragonfly, and brown mealworm larvae (Korea Science).

The restaurant's chef had used ants to add a sour flavor to dishes while working in the United States and Europe. He reportedly did not know the practice was illegal in South Korea. The defense pointed to Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Australia as countries where restaurants use ants as food without similar restrictions.

The trial is being heard at the Seoul Western District Court, with Judge Lee Se-chang in charge. The sentencing is scheduled for September 2, 2026.

The broader context here is that South Korea's food rules have not caught up with trends in fine dining around the world. The list of approved insects is short, and the process for getting temporary approval requires a restaurant to contact the government before serving the food — something this restaurant did not do. The case shows the risk for high-end restaurants that bring in techniques learned abroad without checking whether local laws allow them.

The defense's argument, pointing to Denmark, the UK, and Australia, is an attempt to frame the chef's actions as normal in other parts of the world rather than careless. Whether Judge Lee agrees with that view, or whether the four-year stretch and the large number of servings outweigh the chef's claim that he did not know the law, will be decided on September 2.

The one-year sentence request is well below the five-year maximum. That gap suggests the prosecution sees this mainly as a food-safety violation with a business angle, rather than a serious case of cheating customers.