Ivan Orkin spent years learning about Japanese cooking – and especially how to perfect the celebrated noodles. He reveals the secret to the perfect bowl

“Ramen is one of the hardest things to make,” Ivan Orkin says with quiet authority. “Even now, I get it wrong.” I had come to this interview hoping Orkin, a god in the cult-like world of ramen, and star of a 2017 episode of the Netflix series Chef’s Table, was going to help me up my own ramen game, so this was not exactly what I wanted to hear. But there’s no doubting the guy’s credentials. Though born in Long Island, he has spent much of his life in Tokyo, raising a family while attempting, in the words of the Wall Street Journal’s Yuka Hayashi, to “out-noodle the Japanese” – though I suspect Orkin would argue that he was simply trying to create something that wouldn’t get him laughed out of his adopted home town.

After all, this much-loved noodle soup is a very serious business in Japan, with no fewer than three museums devoted to it, as well as countless manga (one series even features a character called Ramenman), anime, films and books, and a meticulously catalogued Ramen Database run by critic (and some might say obsessive) Ohsaki-san, who eats about 800 portions a year in his quest to keep up with new openings.