Top 10 Ramen Styles Around the World and Where to Find Them

The original. Tokyo-style shoyu (soy sauce) ramen features a clear, deeply savory chicken and dashi-based broth seasoned with dark soy sauce. The noodles are wavy and medium-thick, the toppings classic: menma (bamboo shoots), nori, scallions, and a soft-boiled egg. Shoyu ramen is deceptively simple — the clarity of the broth reveals every imperfection. The best bowls achieve a balance of salt, umami, and sweetness that is almost musical.

Born in Hokkaido's harsh winters, miso ramen uses fermented soybean paste to create a rich, warming broth that feels like a hug in bowl form. Sapporo-style typically includes butter and sweet corn — ingredients that sound wrong until you taste them together. The miso adds a funky, complex depth that soy sauce and salt broths cannot match. Sumire and Menya Saimi in Sapporo are pilgrimage-worthy.

Invented by Kazuo Yamagishi at Taishoken in Tokyo in 1961, tsukemen serves thick noodles cold alongside a concentrated, intensely flavored dipping broth. You dip the noodles into the broth, and the temperature contrast and textural experience is entirely different from regular ramen. The broth is typically 2-3x more concentrated than standard ramen soup. When you finish, you add dashi water to the broth and drink it as a soup. It is genius engineering.

Japan's adaptation of Sichuan dan dan noodles features a sesame-paste-enriched, spicy broth with ground pork, chili oil, and bok choy. The Japanese version is creamier and less aggressively spicy than the Chinese original, creating a nutty, warming bowl that has become one of the most popular ramen styles in Japan. Nakiryu in Tokyo earned a Michelin star for its tantanmen — the first ramen shop with a star for a spicy dish.

The lightest and most delicate ramen style, shio uses salt as the primary seasoning tare, allowing the quality of the base broth to shine without distortion. The best shio ramen is transparent, golden, and intensely flavored despite its visual simplicity. It is the hardest ramen to make well because there is nowhere to hide imperfections. Hakodate in southern Hokkaido is the spiritual home, and the local version uses a kelp-forward dashi that is unforgettable.

Ramen Jiro is not cuisine — it is an endurance test. Enormous portions of thick, chewy noodles swimming in pork-fat-enriched soy broth, topped with a mountain of bean sprouts, raw garlic, and thick slabs of fatty chashu. Portions are obscene, the ordering system is intimidating (you must specify toppings using specific calls), and finishing a large bowl is a rite of passage. Jiro has a cult following in Japan that borders on religious.

No soup, just thick noodles coated in a concentrated sauce of soy, vinegar, chili oil, and raw egg yolk. You mix everything together (maze = mix) and the egg creates a silky, carbonara-like coating. Mazesoba originated at Menya Hanabi in Nagoya as "Taiwan mazesoba" and has spawned countless variations. It is the fastest-growing ramen style in Japan because it solves the eternal problem of broth cooling before you finish.

Ivan Orkin (an American who opened legendary ramen shops in Tokyo before returning to NYC) and David Chang (Momofuku) pioneered a distinctly American ramen movement. New York ramen often features non-traditional ingredients — smoked brisket, fried chicken, truffle oil, craft beer broths — that would horrify purists but create exciting new flavor combinations. Ivan Ramen, Mu Ramen, and Totto Ramen are essential stops.

Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in 1958, and it has fed more people than any other food innovation in history. Over 120 billion servings are consumed annually worldwide. While instant ramen is the "junk food" version, the category has evolved dramatically — premium instant options from Nongshim (Shin Ramyun), Nissin, and Maruchan offer genuinely delicious meals for under $2. Ando's invention was voted Japan's greatest invention of the 20th century, ahead of the Walkman and bullet train.

The original. Tokyo-style shoyu (soy sauce) ramen features a clear, deeply savory chicken and dashi-based broth seasoned with dark soy sauce. The noodles are wavy and medium-thick, the toppings classic: menma (bamboo shoots), nori, scallions, and a soft-boiled egg. Shoyu ramen is deceptively simple — the clarity of the broth reveals every imperfection. The best bowls achieve a balance of salt, umami, and sweetness that is almost musical.

Born in Hokkaido's harsh winters, miso ramen uses fermented soybean paste to create a rich, warming broth that feels like a hug in bowl form. Sapporo-style typically includes butter and sweet corn — ingredients that sound wrong until you taste them together. The miso adds a funky, complex depth that soy sauce and salt broths cannot match. Sumire and Menya Saimi in Sapporo are pilgrimage-worthy.

Invented by Kazuo Yamagishi at Taishoken in Tokyo in 1961, tsukemen serves thick noodles cold alongside a concentrated, intensely flavored dipping broth. You dip the noodles into the broth, and the temperature contrast and textural experience is entirely different from regular ramen. The broth is typically 2-3x more concentrated than standard ramen soup. When you finish, you add dashi water to the broth and drink it as a soup. It is genius engineering.

Japan's adaptation of Sichuan dan dan noodles features a sesame-paste-enriched, spicy broth with ground pork, chili oil, and bok choy. The Japanese version is creamier and less aggressively spicy than the Chinese original, creating a nutty, warming bowl that has become one of the most popular ramen styles in Japan. Nakiryu in Tokyo earned a Michelin star for its tantanmen — the first ramen shop with a star for a spicy dish.

The lightest and most delicate ramen style, shio uses salt as the primary seasoning tare, allowing the quality of the base broth to shine without distortion. The best shio ramen is transparent, golden, and intensely flavored despite its visual simplicity. It is the hardest ramen to make well because there is nowhere to hide imperfections. Hakodate in southern Hokkaido is the spiritual home, and the local version uses a kelp-forward dashi that is unforgettable.

Ramen Jiro is not cuisine — it is an endurance test. Enormous portions of thick, chewy noodles swimming in pork-fat-enriched soy broth, topped with a mountain of bean sprouts, raw garlic, and thick slabs of fatty chashu. Portions are obscene, the ordering system is intimidating (you must specify toppings using specific calls), and finishing a large bowl is a rite of passage. Jiro has a cult following in Japan that borders on religious.

No soup, just thick noodles coated in a concentrated sauce of soy, vinegar, chili oil, and raw egg yolk. You mix everything together (maze = mix) and the egg creates a silky, carbonara-like coating. Mazesoba originated at Menya Hanabi in Nagoya as "Taiwan mazesoba" and has spawned countless variations. It is the fastest-growing ramen style in Japan because it solves the eternal problem of broth cooling before you finish.

Ivan Orkin (an American who opened legendary ramen shops in Tokyo before returning to NYC) and David Chang (Momofuku) pioneered a distinctly American ramen movement. New York ramen often features non-traditional ingredients — smoked brisket, fried chicken, truffle oil, craft beer broths — that would horrify purists but create exciting new flavor combinations. Ivan Ramen, Mu Ramen, and Totto Ramen are essential stops.

Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in 1958, and it has fed more people than any other food innovation in history. Over 120 billion servings are consumed annually worldwide. While instant ramen is the "junk food" version, the category has evolved dramatically — premium instant options from Nongshim (Shin Ramyun), Nissin, and Maruchan offer genuinely delicious meals for under $2. Ando's invention was voted Japan's greatest invention of the 20th century, ahead of the Walkman and bullet train.