Before there were Nobu restaurants throughout the world, there was Matsuhisa, Chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s signature restaurant. The menu is staggering in its variety, offering a vast selection of cold and hot Japanese and Peruvian-Japanese dishes, including, of course, his classic black cod with miso. Add up all the salads, tempuras, kushiyakis (skewers), hand rolls, cut rolls, cold special dishes, and hot special dishes, and you arrive at a menu with more than 200 possibilities, none of them, to my knowledge, disappointing. I admit, however, that I haven’t come close to trying every one. Matsuhisa makes most other sushi restaurants seem like snack bars. —Alan Richman

Alan Richman has won 16 James Beard Foundation Awards for his journalism on food and wine, and a National Magazine Award for feature writing