The multi-city dining house is not a late-twentieth-century invention. Nadaman opened in Osaka in 1830 and was inside a foreign-brand hotel in Tokyo by 1970 — twenty-four years before Nobu opened in New York. Kitcho dates from 1930, Din Tai Fung from 1972, Milos from 1979. The chapter’s real chronology starts in Japan, not in London in 2002.
Two different things are filed here under one name. Networks — Zuma, Hakkasan, LPM, Coya, Nobu — are concepts built from the outset to repeat, where authorship belongs to the concept rather than to a person, which is exactly what makes them portable. Singular houses — Milos under one owner for forty-seven years, Le Bernardin, Troisgros across four generations — never repeated and never intended to.
Ownership is the other thing the rows do not show. DIAFA of Abu Dhabi holds five entries in this Library; Accor owns Paris Society; Soho House owns Cecconi’s; Mohari owns Hakkasan; and four fashion families — Ruffini, Cavalli, Ferragamo, Prada — operate register entries outright rather than lending a name to them.