Film Review: Come Back Anytime delivers delicious food and good company

Ramen 'taisho' Masamoto Ueda in Come Back Anytime

• Come Back Anytime
• ★★★★★
• Cinema release

Set in a tiny ramen shack on a Tokyo backstreet, Come Back Anytime (G) is likely the most delightful documentary you’ll see all year. 

Masumoto Ueda has been serving his ramen-based menu for the best part of four decades, but while the early stages of John Daschbach’s film are a foodie’s delight as Masumoto talks us through the subtleties of his cooking style, the movie has — sorry — far more important fish to fry.

Masumoto, who is referred to as Taisho, or Master, by his clientele, has established a genuine community in his ramen shack: as the customers move away from talking about the food to speak about their Taisho, and the atmosphere he unwittingly cultivates, we discover that he has created a home-from-home (apart, that is, from when he takes his clientele off into the mountains on foraging expeditions for ingredients). 

His methods, meanwhile, are relaxed and easy-going; his basic ingredients, as he explains with a shrug, are ‘not cheap, but nothing special’.

In other words, and while it is nowhere spoken aloud, the self-deprecating Taisho has achieved a beautifully delicate Zen balance, not only with his food but in his tiny restaurant and his own life too. 

An enchanting film, Come Back Anytime delivers delicious food, good company, and a profound but unspoken philosophy — what more could the discerning palate possibly require?