In 2012 and 2013, when people were lining up at Smorgasburg and then on the second floor of the Houston Street Whole Foods Market for biodegradable bowls of Yuji Haraguchi’s mazemen — noodles that might be dressed with crisped twigs of bacon and a jiggling onsen egg, say, or yuzu-cured salmon and some Camembert soft enough to transform into a sauce — I was sure the crowds would multiply and fan out, demanding more of this strange brothless ramen.

And they did, in a sense. Soon Mr. Haraguchi had established his own free-standing establishment, Yuji Ramen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he serves that bacon-and-egg mazemen along with his possibly visionary “tunakotsu” ramen. In 2014, when Ivan Orkin came to New York, he brought along his own mazemen recipes. Over the next few years mazemen turned up in other restaurants, too, but all of them remained better known for soup ramen, and sold more of it. It began to look as if mazemen would never be more than a sideshow act, the one-armed ax-catcher of the ramen circus.

Then at the start of the year, the chef Shigetoshi Nakamura, who operates an intimate ramen shop on the Lower East Side, opened an annex next door that is dedicated to mazemen. All the seating at this new place, Niche, is at a dozen or so stools arranged around one long, narrow table. When the dining room is fully occupied, the only way to get from one end to the other is to walk sideways while holding your breath and picking up all the coats that you are going to knock off their wall pegs as you go.