Nobuo: Essentiality, Clarity, and Hospitality

 “Curry Rice!” my friend exclaimed as a white bowl was placed in front of him. A small mound of white rice with a dark and shimmering crescent-shaped pool of curry was an unexpected way to finish the savory portion of a tasting menu. Since the restaurant has one Michelin star, the curry rice is an elevated version of standard Japanese fare; the ingredient list is long, with mirepoix, fruits, spices, espresso, and dark chocolate. The rice was perfectly cooked, and the curry was full-flavored and complex. This is one of two signature dishes by Chef Nobu Lee at his eponymous restaurant, Nobuo, in downtown Taipei.

At first glance, the "ugly delicious" curry seemed out of place among the parade of delicately plated savory courses that came before. The seemingly simple yet complex dish is not only comforting but also reflects the essence of the restaurant and its chef—a confluence of different cultures and influences gained through travel and life experiences.

Curry may have its origins in India, but Japanese curry is not a direct descendant; rather, it was brought to Japan by the British. As curry migrates through the world, it gets reinterpreted. In Japan, curry was adapted to suit local tastes and became its own genre. Japanese-Taiwanese chef Lee spent his tumultuous childhood in Japan and later in Taiwan. Like many great chefs, he started as a dishwasher and worked in all sorts of places to make ends meet, including the American Club in Taipei. Eventually, he secured a job at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris, which set the course for a career in fine dining. He was trained by some of the best French chefs in the world—Joël Robuchon and Yannick Alléno—by working in their restaurants in Taipei. He also worked in Australia and New Zealand. His journey ultimately brought him back to Taipei in 2019, where he became the head chef at Orchid restaurant. In 2023, he opened his own restaurant. Lee’s food is French in origin and technique, but many of the ingredients he uses are local. The flavor profiles are adapted to the local palate. Like Japanese curry, Lee has made French cuisine uniquely his own in Taipei.

The first time I had the curry rice—I’ve been to the restaurant twice—I didn’t know the dish offered unlimited servings. After I devoured the food, the server asked if I would like some more. Without thinking much, I said, “Sure.” It was only after I finished the second serving and the server asked again if I wanted another that I realized the curry rice was unlimited. The server said the chef wants to make sure people don’t leave the restaurant hungry. The idea that one can ask for more, and that there’s always more rice available, feels like eating at someone’s home. One senses less of the transactional nature of dining out and more of generosity.

The ambiance of the restaurant also feels a bit like a home. It is located on the ground floor of a seven-story apartment building in a residential neighborhood. The semi-enclosed entrance is partly paneled in wood, with painted green walls. A large potted leafy plant dominates the entry. Beside the dark brown wood door is a backlit crest reminiscent of Japanese family crests. Lee’s crest consists of three oysters and three knives. In the press, Lee said that a chef he once worked with told him, “The world is your oyster.” This phrase has stayed with him ever since, serving as an inspiration for freedom, adventure, and the pursuit of his dreams.

Step inside the wooden door, and you’ll find a shallow credenza in a small foyer—like entering someone’s apartment. In contrast to the exterior, the color palette inside is light, with off-white walls and ceiling and light wood floors. The dining room is one continuous space with two distinct areas. The back area, with 12 seats, is more defined and does not have a direct view of the open kitchen. The front area, with six seats, is directly in front of the kitchen. The kitchen workstations are perpendicular to the space, and there isn’t a barrier between the kitchen and the diners—not even a kitchen pass; it feels almost like eating at a kitchen table. Even though the kitchen is open, it is not noisy at all. In fact, there’s an efficiency and rhythm to the movement that feels almost choreographed.

There are no views to the outside, but a window made of glass bricks allows some natural light into the space during the day. Framed artworks hang on a few walls, and the soundtrack is mostly mid-century hard-bop jazz. The wooden tables are covered with white tablecloths that are slotted into the table at both ends. The table setting is minimal, with just the essentials: a white napkin, a simple water glass, and a menu. Even though the restaurant is small, the tables are nicely spaced. The overall feel is very pleasant.

Maybe because I visited Tokyo just before coming to Nobuo for the first time, the restaurant feels slightly Japanese in terms of its look and scale. I can’t quite explain this perception, but I can easily imagine Nobuo being located in Tokyo’s Minato ward.

Lee stated that his food is based on the principles of "simplicity, purity, and honesty." I’ve been to the restaurant twice in the last six months—once for lunch and once for dinner—and I understand these ideas and see them reflected on the plates. However, these terms can feel a bit nebulous. Instead, I suggest three other words to describe Lee’s food, as well as the restaurant: essentiality, clarity, and hospitality.

Simplicity in fine dining often belies the complicated and arduous process behind it. This is similar to minimalist architecture, where achieving something that looks simple and effortless often requires more work and greater expense. Also, simplicity in food doesn’t mean a lack of complexity in flavor. Instead of “simplicity,” I prefer the term essentiality to describe what Lee is trying to achieve—and, for the most part, accomplishes. His dishes are pared down and free of extraneous components.

The two scallop dishes that Lee served in succession during my dinner in June are good examples. The first was a cold scallop dish: the scallop was lightly smoked, served with almond purée, and topped with caviar. The dish certainly looked simple and elegant, but it was rooted in refined technique. The beauty of this simplicity is that the diner is not distracted and can truly focus on the taste of the ingredients.

The warm scallop dish is Lee’s other signature offering: scallop mousse. The mousse is molded in the shape of a small scallop shell, steamed, and served with a butter-based sauce. Visually, this dish is even simpler, with a very limited color palette—yet it is strikingly beautiful. It’s a good example of how you don’t need sharply contrasting colors, excessive ingredients, or tweezer-plated components to create a stunning dish—a rare sight in Western fine dining in Taipei. The texture of the scallop mousse is light, and the sauce is wonderful. The dish’s simplicity demands technical precision because there’s nothing to hide mistakes. It was a memorable dish, and I can see why Lee always keeps it on the seasonally changing menu.

For the majority of the meal, Lee manages to keep things simple and essential, but occasionally a dish doesn’t quite work. The main course at my dinner in June—A5 wagyu beef au poivre with conch—was a bit too complicated and lacked balance. I love the idea of surf and turf, but in this case, the two didn’t really go together. The conch provided a different texture from the beef but felt more decorative than complementary. The sauce was well made but a bit too heavy—not just for the conch, but for the beef as well. Each of the components was well prepared, but they didn’t seem to come together cohesively. I can see that, since this is the pièce de résistance, the chef wanted to do more, but this dish didn’t have the same quality of simplicity or essentiality as the seafood dishes. To make matters worse, the dish comes with a NT$600 supplemental charge.

Lee’s second principle is “purity,” which implies the state of not being mixed with anything else. Again, I understand Lee’s intention, but this idea is hard to apply to food, because cooking inevitably involves some manipulation of nature’s bounty. Instead of purity, I prefer the term "clarity", which suggests coherence, intelligibility, and the ability to see—or taste—clearly. There is clarity in Lee’s intention, execution, and flavor profile. You know what you are eating, and the food is not overly manipulated for the sake of technique.

The best example is the fish course: snapper with green peas. The fish was cooked simply and looked beautiful. The petit pois that accompanied the fish were vibrant in color and nicely prepared. The sauce, made with clams to enhance the flavor, was delicate and well balanced. One could see and taste the freshness. There was clarity in both the plating and the flavors. It was a wonderful dish.

Another example is the octopus, which is slow-cooked, seared, dusted with shrimp powder, and served with a shrimp- and tomato-based cream sauce. 

The pre-dessert is also a good illustration of clarity. Lee serves a quenelle of tofu ice cream with tofu purée. The appearance and flavor of the pre-dessert are clean and simply very nice.

The same cannot be said about the main dessert, which takes inspiration from the Japanese treat sakuramochi. It consists of red bean paste, diced wax apple, white chocolate ganache, cherry blossom leaf, sake sorbet, and a sake-based sauce. The ideas of essentiality and clarity both eluded this dessert. Of all the dishes I had at Nobuo, this was the one I disliked the most. Maybe I don’t have a strong enough memory of eating sakuramochi to appreciate the idea behind the dessert—or maybe I was just hoping for some actual mochi. The flavors of each component were fine, but they didn’t seem to come together to form a cohesive whole. For me, this dessert was too clever or complicated for its own good.

Aside from the dessert, the other thing I don’t like at Nobuo is the bread service. In between the two seafood courses, the server brought out a small kugelhopf with a dipping sauce. This is one of the few things I didn’t enjoy at either of my meals. I didn’t understand the purpose of the dish or its place in the sequence. This is essentially the bread course, but the kugelhopf was too crumbly—more like a cake than a bread. It was hard to eat with the sauce served on the side. I also disliked the size—it was too small.

I wish Lee would serve a larger kugelhopf meant to be shared, like Gabriel Kreuther does at his eponymous restaurant in New York City. It’s always nice to break bread with dining companions. Actually, what I’d really prefer is for Lee to serve some bread at the beginning of the meal. Many of the dishes at Nobuo come with well-made and delicious sauces. It would be so much better if I had some bread to sop up those sauces.

Maybe Lee doesn’t have the personnel or capacity for an in-house bread program. There’s nothing wrong with outsourcing bread—even some Michelin three-star restaurants do that. Perhaps Lee thinks serving bread is too Western, or that it doesn’t pair well with the curry rice at the end. But if not bread, how about some flatbread (餅)? Starting from the amuse-bouche, there are so many nice sauces that deserve to be sopped up.

Lee’s third principle is “honesty.” Frankly, this is a bit hard for a diner to judge. Take the pricing of the meals at Nobuo: lunch is NT$2,880 plus 10%, and dinner is NT$4,280 plus 10%; lunch has three fewer courses than dinner. Are these prices honest or fair? I can only say the pricing seems reasonable based on the experience and in comparison to other similar restaurants in Taipei. Or take the origin of the ingredients—I can only assume the information provided is accurate. Therefore, instead of honesty, I prefer the term hospitality, which means the act of being friendly and welcoming to guests.

You can feel the hospitality the moment you walk into the restaurant. You are welcomed by a friendly server who helps open the door. As you walk past the open kitchen, the chef says hello. After sitting down, the restaurant manager, Heidi Peng, comes to greet you and explain the menu.

Hospitality doesn’t mean being overtly friendly. For instance, when dishes are brought to the table, there are no lengthy explanations—just the essentials. The servers don’t hover over you or interrupt your conversations with your dining companions. But throughout the meal at Nobuo, you always feel well taken care of by the staff. The service feels more European than American or Taiwanese. The staff is sincere and very professional.

Another example is the aforementioned unlimited refill of curry rice. Chef Lee is a serious cook—you won’t find him laughing it up or sitting down with diners in the dining room. But you can see his hospitality and heartfelt desire to make sure guests go home with full stomachs.

At our dinner in June, we were celebrating my daughter’s birthday. The restaurant put a candle on her dessert plate. But they went one step beyond the standard practice: Peng gave her a birthday card signed by the entire staff. It was her first time at Nobuo, yet the gesture made her feel at home—as if she were with old friends. However, to make it even more personal, Peng might consider handwriting the entire note, similar to what luxury hotels often do.

After we finished our dinner, we said goodbye to the chef and staff. A server walked us to the door and waited with us until our ride arrived. He saw us off with the same way you might find in Japan.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me what memorable meal I had recently. Without hesitation, I said Nobuo. The meal wasn’t perfect, but it was a highly enjoyable experience. The majority of the dishes were on point and delicious. The weaker dishes—the final savory course and the main dessert—were those where Lee seemed to be trying to do too much or felt the need to present a multi-component creation. The result was dishes with well-executed parts, but lacking an integrated whole where everything felt essential.

Given that the restaurant serves only one tasting menu for all guests, I wish Lee would experiment with some large-format dishes. Instead of conceiving and cooking only individual tasting portions, why not create dishes that are shared and even cut and served table side? For example, rather than serving each diner a small kugelhopf, why not bake a large loaf of bread and slice it at the table—similar to what Alain Ducasse does at some of his fine dining restaurants. For savory courses, there could be en croûte dishes or whole poultry meant for sharing. Large-format dishes would provide variety and perhaps lessen the need for overly complicated main courses.

Since Nobuo is a small restaurant, difficult to book, and offers only a seasonal tasting menu, it’s not the kind of place one can visit weekly or even monthly. Nor is it a restaurant that promises extravagance or grand cuisine. Rather, Nobuo is a very good and compelling restaurant where you can have a great experience, enjoy beautiful ingredients cooked with skill,   and gain insights into the world that Lee came from.