Who created the Japanese spaghetti dish Naporitan at Yokohama's Hotel New Grand?

Shigetada Irie created the Japanese spaghetti dish Naporitan at Yokohama’s Hotel New Grand.

Irie was the hotel’s chef and later became its second head chef. After World War II, Hotel New Grand was requisitioned for roughly seven years, and American personnel ate simply boiled spaghetti seasoned with salt, pepper, and tomato ketchup. That wartime food inspired Irie to develop a more refined hotel dish.

Naporitan is a yoshoku dish: Western-style food adapted to Japanese tastes. Its familiar versions commonly combine soft-cooked spaghetti with ketchup, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, sausage, or bacon. Despite its name, it was created in Japan rather than Naples, Italy.

The spelling can also cause confusion. “Naporitan” follows a common romanization of the Japanese name, while “Napolitan” reflects the dish’s association with Napoli, or Naples. The creator, however, remains Shigetada Irie—not a famous Italian chef or a modern Japanese restaurant celebrity.