This Russian Restaurant Is Serving Rat Burgers

Spotting a rat in a restaurant is usually followed by a swift exit and a tip-off to the local council. (Cue the Daily Mail headlines: "I found a rat the size of my ARM in my Sunday roast.") But one restaurant in Russia is hoping to make rodents the main attraction—and without risking its health and hygiene rating.

Chef Takhir Kholikberdiev at Krasnodar Bistro in Moscow wants his diners to eat rodents. In particular, the nutria, an orange-toothed river rat found in southern Russia.

Just let that digest a moment.

The restaurant is serving up the nutria, which looks similar to an otter and is said to taste somewhere between turkey and pork, in burgers, dumplings, and hot dogs. Well, you never really know what kind of unidentified meat goes into the latter, anyway.

A photo posted by Krasnodar Bistro (@krasnodarbistro) on Oct 30, 2016 at 5:41am PDT

Kholikberdiev wants people to realise that the rodent isn't as dirty as they might think. He told the Guardian, "It's a really clean animal. Not only is it a herbivore but it washes all its food before it eats. And it's very high in omega-3 acids. A lot of doctors and dietitians recommend it."

Well, if it's a veggie with thorough hygiene standards …

Kholikberdiev continued to tell the Guardian that the river rats breed quickly, making them cheap to farm, and that they're already popular in southern regions of Russian as an inexpensive meat. He said: "Every village in Krasnodar region would have 100 or so nutrias, and when you went to stay with your grandparents, they'd always stew one up for you."

Over the last year, Russian restaurants have been forced to source their ingredients closer to home, following the government's decision to extend its food embargo into 2017, blocking imports of products like meat, dairy, fish, and vegetables from Western countries.

Dining on rat could be about to become a whole lot more common in Russia, whether diners like it or not.