FOR THOSE of us who were just too young to experience them as adults, the boom years of the late 1980s have a glittering, almost mystical, allure. That was the era of Wall Street and the yuppie, of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and Martin Amis’s Money. To work in London or Manhattan, if the myths are to be believed, was like living in a 24-hour Duran Duran music video, complete with champagne, yachts and an excess of hair gel. And nowhere was the consumption more gross and conspicuous than in Japan.

Old timers sigh wistfully about the delicious excesses of Bubble-era Tokyo even now — the night clubs staffed by beauties from across the planet, with gold-leaf sprinkled on the cocktails and mink covers on the lavatory seats. Back then, they say, the sushi was not considered edible unless it was eaten off the naked body of a young beauty queen. But then the Bubble burst, and those of us who arrived here late found ourselves in a pallid and uneasy city, struggling with the funk of recession and unemployment. Finally, though, I have incontrovertible evidence that the glory days are back.

I refer not to the dry data of GDP rates and consumer spending, but to a far more reliable indicator: the rise of ridiculously decadent restaurants. The other day I ate a meal so elaborate that it transcended pretentiousness to achieve the calm and simplicity of great art.

The place is called the Tapas Molecular Bar in the newly opened Mandarin Oriental (big new hotels are opening all over the place, another clue that things are on the up). A friend had a reservation there, but his date had fallen ill at the last minute. Seats at the Molecular Bar have the status and rarity value of a box at the opera, so there was no question of simply cancelling. He passed the reservation on to us, with the warning that we were to arrive at 8.30 on the dot — latecomers might not be admitted.

We arrived as summoned, and were seated beside two other couples at a counter with a cocktail bar behind and, to the front, an area that looked like a cross between a sushi bar and a chemistry lab. Within it, two young chefs busied themselves with flasks and retorts. What followed over the next hour and a half is not easy to explain. The meal consisted of 25 courses. Few were larger than a spoonful. And none resembled anything conventionally regarded as food.

Japan, of course, has a long tradition of meals made up of tiny dishes and I have eaten my share of quail ribs and octopus thighs — but nothing like this. It began with a tiny dish of olive-scented foam. Then there was foie gras wrapped in candyfloss and a cup of foie gras cappuccino.

The climax of artificiality were probably the imitation fish eggs cunningly fashioned out of carrot. One course consisted of a piece of tissue paper impregnated with the smell of truffles: just the smell — no actual truffles were to be ingested.

Some ingredients were impossible to identify as I realised after sneezing violently just as the chef was presenting a virulently purple dish (frozen beetroot soup, as it turned out). Was that extra drizzling of jus his special favour to me, or had I just produced it myself? It was difficult to be sure.

There was jelly in a test tubes, beef cooked in aluminium cylinders, and mashed potato dispensed from an aerosol. The temperature of the ice cream was measured with a thermometer before it was served. A morsel of lobster tail was pierced with a sauce-filled hypodermic.

A third of the way through the meal, I was enjoying vivid fantasies about a large Mosurger (Japan’s own version of McDonald’s) on the way home. But by the end I was perfectly full, without feeling uncomfortably stuffed. And the food was as delicious and fascinating as it was ridiculous, even if it was closer to a performance than a meal. When the time came to present the bill (£80 for two, not including drinks), it was fired towards us from the barrel of a toy gun.

Most important of all though, it shows that Japan is bouncing back. The years of caution and austerity are behind us; soon pretentious restaurants will be opening all over, with long queues of ill-tempered diners. Waiters and maître d’s will become surly and arrogant, prices will go up and it will become impossible to flag down a taxi. The recession is over! It’s everything we’ve been dreaming of for all these years.

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