To fix this issue, he moved to Italy for about 4 years to train, becoming the fourth Iron Chef upon his arrival home.

[1] Originally believing that he would be a challenger, Kobe found out that he was to be an Iron Chef mere days before his departure from Italy.

Kobe, unlike his three fellow chefs, typically rises alone in Kitchen Stadium, many times accompanied by a group of violins playing 'Stoning' by Sahashi Toshihiko.

After Iron Chef, Kobe opened his own restaurant, the Ristorante Massa, in the Ebisu district of Tokyo.

In the post-series New York Battle special in 2000, he assisted Iron Chef French Hiroyuki Sakai in delivering a lecture on preparing salmon to students at the Culinary Institute of America.