Mention the name Nobu to most jet-setters and they will recall the international restaurants serving "nouvelle Japonais" cuisine. The one in Tokyo occupies a sprawling, bungalow-style structure that hogs an impressive chunk of street front on Roppongi-dori near Shibuya. But what all the globe-hopping gourmands who've eaten there don't know is that just across the street -- almost exactly opposite, in fact -- is another Nobu, which has been quietly operating on what was once a darkened stretch of road for the past 20 years.
This Johnny-come-lately restaurant and the original Aoyama Nobu are the antithesis of each other in almost every way. The original is the cutest little Japanese-style drinking spot you could ever hope to discover in the heart of a big city. It is insanely small: With arms outstretched, you can almost touch opposite walls, in either direction. What you see is what you get -- a row of six midget bar stools fronting a narrow strip of counter, behind which is a hobbit-sized kitchen and a small square of floor space where someone may stand.
That someone is Nobu-chan. For a Japanese man entering his 50s, he cuts a dashing figure, with a bristling mustache, a solid helmet of hair, now streaked with distinguishing gray, and wearing an indigo-died samue (like a blue karate outfit, with loose pants and a happi coat tied at the waist). He does, however, occasionally don a different uniform -- a fireman's suit and cap, both of which hang behind the door in the "water closet" (a term appropriately descriptive of the amenities at Nobu's).