In the throes of an economic downturn, with unemployment rates mounting, the very idea of a robot chef might seem indulgent at best  at worst, downright offensive. But these robots aren’t likely to be running the grill stations or bringing you chowder anytime soon  and the bad economy might be part of the reason. At $100,000 a pair, Mr. Nagaya said, the cost of his robots is “too high to make bowls of ramen.”

But they may be worth the cost at Mr. Nagaya’s other workplace, the robotics company Aisei in Nagoya, where he is the president. “I have made and programmed industrial robots at our company so long, and I was thinking to set up a place to promote our business,” he said. “I love ramen a lot, and ramen restaurants are always featured in magazines and on television in Japan, so I thought opening a ramen shop with robots would have a huge impact on promoting our business.”

Mikio Shimizu, the president of Squse, a company in Kyoto, Japan, that is responsible for the sushi-grabbing hand, said that his ultimate goal is to become the world’s largest maker of functional prosthetic hands.

Narito Hosomi, the president of Toyo Riki, a company in Osaka, Japan, that programs the robots responsible for the octopus balls and savory pancakes, said that the final destination for the robots, which cost $200,000 each, was more likely a factory than a kitchen.

But “it’s not interesting to watch robots welding,” Dr. Hosomi said. “If you see robots do the same work as you do in everyday life with the tools you use, it would be easier to understand the functional capability of robots. The okonomiyaki robot is a medium for that purpose. We say a robot can make okonomiyaki, takoyaki  well, what would you like a robot to do for you?”

While cooking is certainly a more universal way to showcase a robot’s abilities than, say, laser-welding, it is also unique in its ability to tackle something deeper: namely, the public’s collective “Terminator”-fueled angst over a future populated by vengeful hominoid machines.

Dr. Heather Knight, a roboticist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the industry is trying to change “the perception of robots.”