Chef Noguchi is a prodigy who found success in restaurants after working at a foreign-owned company. His dishes may be tricky to eat or have odd names, and sometimes he sets rice straw on fire to smoke ingredients right before guests’ eyes – it is all part of a plan to wow guests and have them fully engage with the food. Be prepared for an exciting meal of six or seven dishes at the crossover of Western and Japanese cuisine that might include shijimi clam soup, chirashi-zushi, and sashimi of yokowa, the name in parts of western Japan for young bluefin tuna. Perhaps you will be treated to carpaccio or a lobster roll before you devour the chef’s famous chicken wings and the closing dish of Noguchi Taro ramen. The last two are signatures you can enjoy every time at Noguchi Jiro, but everything else is determined by the season, annual rituals and events, and available produce.

Whereas guests are served only one of the chef’s specialty chicken wings at Noguchi Taro, here you can devour a signature wing and another with different flavors. Entitled “the world's most delicious” chicken wings, it was an experiment to create the quintessential karaage fried chicken that led Noguchi to this recipe. On a whim, he grilled the chicken over charcoal instead of deep frying, and the result was flavor even the chef could hardly believe. Convinced there was still more scope for improvement, the chef spent two more years perfecting his recipe in which the wings are dry-aged for one day and night in a specialized chicken wing cellar to maximize their umami. Seasoned only with salt and pepper, the rest is about expert grilling techniques and placing the wings to expose them to a range of temperatures to extract the innate flavor. The result is wings that are crisp and aromatic on the outside and plump and juicy on the inside.

A dish of chirashi-zushi in which toppings are artfully scattered over a bed of rice contains an array of luxury ingredients, like shrimp, tuna, squid, ikura salmon roe and crab, stuffed inside a yuzu cup. The sashimi of young tuna is topped with sticky, grated mountain yam and a sauce combining Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce, sansho Japanese pepper, garlic and chili pepper. Carpaccio may seem simple, but at Noguchi Jiro, it is a taste and texture sensation, perhaps featuring Kagawa Prefecture ishidai parrot fish and Aichi tairagikai pen shell with a sauce of sea urchin and fish liver and tasty garnishes of murame red shiso buds, micro tomato, cumquat and crushed almonds. The steamed lobster with yuzu mayonnaise and paprika is sandwiched in a soft bun with tomato and a shiso leaf and is a master class in fusing Japanese and Western concepts and ingredients.

The finale is Noguchi Taro ramen. The soup is made from an array of umami-rich ocean fare, like oysters and clams, seasoned with several varieties of soy sauce. The bowl can hardly contain the lashings of soft-simmered pork fillet and sumptuous marinated egg that sit alongside the satsuma-age fish cake – a traditional Japanese food with a twist of truffle flavor and aroma.

Children who can appreciate the cuisine are welcome, and if given sufficient notice, the chef may be able to accommodate guests with allergies.

INGREDIENTS Noguchi wants guests to taste the season, so he procures the best each season from markets in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokushima. Noguchi personally selects the items he likes best, and it is the personal trust relationships established through his kappo and ramen eateries and other business forays with producers and suppliers that guarantee quality. Specialty items include tuna from Toyosu Market’s Yamasawa, Banshu Jidori pedigree chicken delivered daily, and A5 rank Hidagyu wagyu beef; seafood and vegetable ingredients are prepared in as simple a manner as possible to maximize their innate qualities.

In addition to champagne and French wines, Noguchi Jiro has an extensive collection of wines from the exclusive Opus One Winery in Napa Valley. Beer and sake lovers will also have no problem finding their favorite libation.