One of the most influential recordings in history, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959) is the bestselling jazz album of all time. Performed by a cast of greats including saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist Bill Evans, and signalling Davis’ move away from hard bop and into modal jazz, with extensive use of improvisation, it is widely regarded to this day as his masterwork. Ricardo Chaneton, the Venezuela-born chef of award-winning French-Latin American fusion restaurant Mono, in Hong Kong’s Central district, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life. I think I was around 11 years old when I first heard it. It was at home. My parents were divorced and I lived with my dad, who is and always has been a collector of vinyl. I’m sure I heard the album when I was younger, but I only have a memory of it from around 11. I remember suddenly hearing the song “So What”, on full volume, at around 10 o’clock in the morning one day. I get goosebumps when I think about “So What”: it’s such a beautiful song. The way the musicians created this album is insane. They’re an amazing group of creative minds; Miles Davis brought them all together. It’s like how a chef works in a restaurant: you get the best people around you, you get some ingredients, and then there’s some improvisation. You put the right people together and then let them do what they do. How The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy changed this educator’s life I love the melodies on this album, the musicians and the way it was recorded in two days. The musicians of that era had technique, knowledge and passion. Cooks are very similar. Like musicians, we practise every single day. It’s all about mastery of technique with the possibility of improvisation. Mono is a very interesting restaurant. When I created it, I wrote down all my ideas and what I needed to start it, and I never even thought about music. I just forgot it. Then my dad sent me two very heavy boxes. I remember the FedEx guy coming to the restaurant just before it opened. Dad said, “I’ve sent you a gift”, but he didn’t tell me what it was. When I opened the boxes, they were full of vinyl records, with a note saying, “You know what to do”. So I went and bought a second-hand Technics turntable. I had 100 pieces of vinyl my dad had selected for me. The Sleeping Beauty inside me woke up, and I thought, “Let’s buy more”. My collection is now more than 1,000 records. There’s a lot of jazz. In Mono, the music we play is on vinyl, including Kind of Blue . It’s beautiful because it’s physical: you need to touch the records and adjust the volume. Again, it’s like putting ingredients together in a beautiful way. And because it came from my dad, it’s extra special.