Ricardo Chaneton wanted to be a doctor, instead he became a chef, much to his father’s distaste

What did you eat while growing up in Venezuela? “My Italian grandfather moved to Colombia after World War II. He married my Colombian grandmother and they had my mother and moved to Caracas, Venezuela, where there are expatriates from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany. I grew up eating pasta pomodoro, South American dishes like arepas, cachapas, ceviche and ajiaco, Spanish dishes like paella and caldoso rice, and feijoada, a Brazilian black bean stew.”

How did you get into cooking? “When I was 17 years old, I applied to medi­cal school but didn’t get in. I was really sad. I tried sociology for a year but I didn’t like it. Friends introduced me to a guy study­ing to be a chef. It sounded fascinating, so I went back to Caracas and told my dad I wanted to go to culinary school. He was really angry. He called his friend, Roberto, who owned a small pizzeria, and said, ‘My crazy son wants to be a chef. Can you give him a job?’ My dad thought I would fail or hate it.

“I started work the next week and, at the same time, I enrolled into culinary school. My father didn’t want to pay for the tuition so I did because the salary covered it. I did whatever Roberto told me to do – cut onions, wash pots and pans. The first week was beautiful. I got my hands dirty cleaning the kitchen and I burned my hands. My dad saw me so happy, he thought I was crazy. I did it for three months and I wanted more.”

Later you worked at Le Gourmet. What was that like? “Le Gourmet is in the InterContinental hotel in Caracas and is a signature restaurant in Venezuela. It’s classic French, with silverware and white gloves. I was there for a year with chef Thomas Fernandez. He hired me because of my hobby – sailing. On the weekends I went sailing with my dad on a Sunfish, a sailing dinghy, and competed in regattas in school. Thomas hired me because I was a sailor, and a sailor never goes to sea without checking his equipment and his boat. A chef is the same – you cannot start service without preparing your station.”

How was it working at Quique Dacosta, in Dénia, Spain? “A Venezuelan chef I met at Le Gourmet suggested I work at Quique Dacosta. It had two Michelin stars, so the restaurant needed to work hard to not lose a star and to get the third star. Ten days into my stage [internship], I knew I wanted to stay despite the pressure because I wanted to learn from the best. After two months, they asked me to stay and I said yes.

“One time we all had to sweep the street outside the restaurant. Some interns complained that they came to cook, not to sweep the street. Chef Quique explained that someone may make a reservation with us and fly halfway around the world to eat here. ‘The guest might lose his luggage, his flight might be delayed. We cannot control that, but as soon as the taxi turns the corner to our restaurant, I want to control everything that happens to him from when he gets out of the taxi to the end of his meal.’ When I heard Quique say that, I thought, ‘Wow! That’s Michelin-star level.’”