In a leafy backstreet in the Sichuanese capital Chengdu, where retired people sit around playing mah-jong on warm afternoons, there is a heavy, unmarked wooden door. Behind it, chef Lan Guijun is making noodles for the evening’s dinner. He stands at a long wooden bench, slicing sheets of yellow dough into hair-like strands with a knife the size of a woodsaw; his movements have the graceful control of a t’ai chi master. “There is no water in this dough,” he says. “Only the yolks of free-range duck eggs.” To prove it, he holds up a bunch of the noodly strands and ignites them with a cigarette lighter: they burn up immediately in a frizz of oily richness.

Lan Guijun is the latest Chengdu chef to throw down the gauntlet before the international arbiters of gastronomy. His tiny restaurant, Yu Zhi Lan, seeks to offer the luxury, intimacy and culinary perfection of an establishment like the French Laundry in Yountville, California, but in terms of classic Chinese cuisine. Yu Zhi Lan is named after a rare Chinese orchid that was once a favourite of the Empress Dowager Cixi. It consists of a central hall, a kitchen and just three private rooms seating a maximum of 18 guests: dining is by appointment only. Lan runs the place with Lü Zhongyu, his wife and sous-chef, and six employees. The restaurant opened quietly in August 2011 and its fame has spread among food-lovers in China, Hong Kong and Japan.

The noodle demonstration is just the prelude to a spectacular banquet. Before long we are ushered to our places at a long, rectangular table set with a ravishing tableau of 10 cold appetisers. There are hand-torn rabbit slivers spiced with chilli; slices of beef shin with fresh green Sichuan pepper, and a salad of ze’er gen, a local vegetable with a peculiar, sour, herby taste. A black, moon-like plate holds a delicate tangle of orange, white, yellow, green and pink noodles, served cold with a scattering of sesame seeds and an exquisite “strange-flavour” sauce that is spicy, tingly, sweet, sour and nutty. It’s a virtuoso display of Sichuanese cooking skills with echoes of Japanese aesthetics, and we haven’t even started on the main courses. By the end of the evening, we’ll have sampled a further eight hot dishes and two “small eats”.