100 Top Tables 2020 Rising Star award: chef Ricardo Chaneton on being true to himself – and how he nearly became a doctor

The first 100 Top Tables Rising Star award goes to chef and recent restaurateur Ricardo Chaneton. Although Chaneton is not new to the culinary scene in Hong Kong having spent four years as executive chef at Island Shangri-La’s French fine dining restaurant Petrus, Mono is the first restaurant where he can express who he really is – and the results are outstanding.

“I came from France to Petrus,” says Venezuelan-born Chaneton, who worked for seven years at three-Michelin star Mirazur under visionary chef-owner Mauro Colagreco.

“Petrus was my first restaurant as executive chef, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t build it or create it. Petrus for me was when you graduate and want to specialise in something, I learned so much there.”

Now, as chef and co-owner, he has partnered with Yenn Wong’s JIA Group. “Mono is my first restaurant where every day I work to be a better cook and chef, I can do the things I really want to do,” he says. “When I met Yenn I had so much respect for her. Every time I talked with her I learned something. It is interesting the way she works and she has the similar passion. to me,” he adds.

“We discussed the restaurant and what we should do. I mentioned French technique with Japanese ingredients. Yenn didn’t even say what I expected – ‘Again, another one’ – referring to many fine dining restaurants doing the same. Instead she said, ‘What about being true to yourself? Where are you from?’ And that phrase alone, changed everything. She made me understand that she wanted something different. She sees things where no one else does.”