How Ivan Orkin’s ramen story brought him to London

Considering Ivan Orkin’s background and initial reluctance to pursue the “crazy” idea of opening a ramen shop, his success story is all the more remarkable.

Ivan recently brought his Tokyo success to London, opening Ivan Ramen in Farringdon.

Born in New York, Ivan moved to Japan in the 1980s to teach English. He returned to the US with his Japanese wife Tamie, working as a chef in some New York restaurants.

A few years after Tamie’s tragic death, Ivan returned to Japan, where he met his second wife Mari.

Seeking a new job role, it was Mari who would be the one to convince Ivan to turn to ramen.

Ivan, now known as the ‘ramen junkie’ on social media, has amassed a large following, notably growing his Instagram following to over 160,000.

Asked what made him initially fall in love with ramen, Ivan explained: “It was a bit fortuitous. I was living in Tokyo with my family and didn’t really have a job at the time.

“I was taking care of my kids while my wife was the breadwinner, and this was right around the beginning of the ramen boom.

“I was already a chef and knew a lot about cooking, but ramen was clearly different.

“In French cooking, which is my background, we clean up soups and make refined broths. Ramen broths are dirtier, richer, and then you add all these different things.

“I didn’t really understand what was going on, and that made me obsessed.

“I would go to ramen shops, watch over the counter and see them adding ladles of things, but I didn’t know what they were adding. I just became fascinated.

“When I decided I wanted to open a restaurant in Tokyo, my wife kept suggesting I open a ramen shop. I thought that was crazy because I didn’t know how to make ramen and I didn’t really want to work in a ramen shop.

“Back then, an American guy working in a ramen shop wasn’t really possible. Maybe now, but not 20 years ago.

“But chefs are meant to figure things out, and I did.”

The origins of ramen

As Ivan says, ramen has certainly had a boom in the past 20 years.

But, as Ivan explains, it had been very popular in certain parts of the world before that.

“It has Chinese origins and probably started becoming really popular in Japan in the 1950s,” he said.

“Instant ramen came along around that time too, maybe in the 1960s, and the idea of ramen as an easy, simple dish became more widespread.

“In the early 2000s, ramen really became a cult thing, with more and more specialist shops in Japan doing interesting styles. As people visited Japan, it started to take off around the world.

“It’s an incredibly satisfying dish. It’s all in one bowl, it’s fun to eat, and it’s hard to eat neatly or quietly.

“You have to relax a bit when you eat ramen. It’s intensely flavoured, noisy and messy, and I think people really enjoy that.”

He added: “Whether you open a burger shop, a ramen shop or a fine dining restaurant, the principles are all the same.

“The kitchen is clean, your knives are sharp, you buy the best ingredients you can afford, and you pay attention to detail. You make really good food and you try to do it the same way every single time, so that when a guest comes back next week, it tastes exactly the same.

“That philosophy had been instilled in me for years, so it was really fun trying to dial in the perfect bowl of ramen.

“Unlike a Western restaurant where I might have had 20 things on the menu, I had one thing. It was exciting to focus on doing it perfectly.”

‘I’d never made noodles before’

A key to any good ramen is, of course, its noodles.

So another fascinating part of the Ivan Ramen story is Ivan’s limited experience at one of the key skills of the dish, prior to opening his shop.

“When I opened Ivan Ramen in Tokyo, I made the crazy decision to make all my noodles in-house,” Ivan explained.

“I bought a noodle machine and got really nerdy about it. It was really fun.

“Now we work with Sun Noodle and together we developed the recipe using their professional machines, but it’s still very close to what I served in Japan.

“I’m very proud of them. They have a small amount of rye flour in them, which gives them an extra bit of flavour when you chew them.

“Even though they’re quite thin, they have a lot of firmness and chew, which makes for a really great eating experience.

“I’d never made noodles before opening my shop, but I had made bread, pastry and pasta, so I’d worked with dough for years. At the end of the day, cooking is cooking.

“I ate a lot of ramen before opening Ivan Ramen, and I was often disappointed by how quickly the noodles overcooked in the broth.

“I wanted a noodle that would last longer, have more texture and more wheat flavour.

“I decided to blend three flours: udon flour, regular 10% flour and bread flour.

“That blend made a noodle that could sit in hot broth for five, six, seven minutes before going completely soft.”

Another key component of many ramen by Ivan Orkin is one of the accompaniments.

“The roasted tomato is one of my signature ingredients,” he said.

“When I opened the shop in Japan, I had an oven because I really wanted one, and I had to think about how to use it. I wanted an interesting umami bomb.

“Tomatoes have a lot of natural umami, and they also have an acidity that cuts the fat and salt a little bit. It’s one of my great ideas and I really love it.

“And then the ramen egg is always my favourite part of the ramen.”

How to make good ramen

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Asked for some expert tips on how to create good ramen, Ivan said: “There are lots of different ways to make broth, and there isn’t necessarily one wrong way.

“You really need to start with very good ingredients: good bones, good meat, good aromatics, whatever you’re using.

“The noodles also have to match the broth. That might sound strange, but if they don’t match, you can tell. The flavour doesn’t stick properly to the noodles, or the noodles just feel out of place.

“I’ve always felt the toppings should not distract from the broth and noodles.

“When I first started making ramen, intensely flavoured ramen was extremely popular. More recently, cleaner-tasting ramen has become popular.”

He added: “One of the biggest challenges is cooking the noodles properly.

“You need free-flowing water at a hard boil, and the noodles need to agitate and move. Then you have to shake out all the water.”

In summary, Ivan said: “A good bowl of ramen, in my mind, is very harmonious.

“All the different ingredients have to balance together. A bad bowl doesn’t balance.”