Mike Pompeo ate filet mignon with a hardline North Korean official, and tried to save the Trump peace summit

• Mike Pompeo met Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean official with a bad reputation, on Wednesday.
• They had a lavish steak dinner served on State Department tableware in a Manhattan high-rise.
• The display of friendship is part of diplomatic efforts to save a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un due in less than two weeks.
• They are trying to hash out sharply differing ideas of denuclearizing North Korea.
• The meeting it remarkable as it is the Trump administration's first taste of the Kim regime unfiltered by mediators like South Korea.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down for a steak dinner with an infamous North Korean official as part of a diplomatic frenzy dedicated to resurrecting the cancelled summit between Donald trump and Kim Jong Un.

Pompeo met Kim Yong Chol, the vice chairman of North Korea's Party Central Committee and a former intelligence chief, for dinner in New York on Wednesday.

The men and two aides went to a high-rise building in east Manhattan, and ate a high-class menu served on State Department crockery in a "working dinner" designed to help hash out the two countries' dramatically different ideas of how North Korea should handle its nuclear weapons program.

Along with Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol were Andrew Kim, a senior CIA official and North Korea expert, and an unnamed North Korean aide.

The US has demanded that North Korea abandon all of its nuclear weapons, while Pyongyang has insisted that it needs nuclear weapons for security.

Experts are skeptical as to whether Pyongyang will really comply with full denuclearization, no matter what concessions it receives in return.

Trump cancelled a highly-anticipated summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore last week, blaming "tremendous anger and open hostility" from North Korea.

However, officials both sides have since said they are still working toward making the June 12 meeting happen.

US and North Korean officials have continued to meet for pre-summit negotiations in Singapore, while the US invited Kim Yong Chol to a meeting on American soil, the type of which has not taken place for decades.

Fine dining diplomacy

Pompeo and Kim's private dinner took place near the United Nations headquarters in Midtown East, Manhattan, the BBC reported. It lasted around 90 minutes.

Here's the menu:

Starter

Bibb lettuce and spring pea salad starter with burrata cheese, ramp pesto, and shaved crudité

Main course

Filet mignon with corn purée, blanched celeriac, and pan-wilted spinach

Dessert

Viennese chocolate soufflé with homemade vanilla ice cream

Photos of the dinner showed Pompeo, Kim, and two aides smiling and toasting each other.

Pompeo tweeted after the dinner: "Good working dinner with Kim Yong Chol in New York tonight. Steak, corn, and cheese on the menu."

The pair also signed a menu after the meal.

Controversial figure

Kim, the country's former intelligence chief, is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the US since 2000, when then-leader Kim Jong Il sent Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok to Washington.

This is also Kim Yong Chol's first visit to the US. Because he has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department twice, he was given a sanctions waiver to make this trip, The Guardian reported.

The 72-year-old is a controversial figure among South Koreans. He is believed to be behind the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship in 2010 that killed 46 sailors, in which Pyongyang has denied involvement.

He is also thought to be behind the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures in response to the James Franco and Seth Rogen movie "The Interview," which insulted Kim Jong Un.