“She asked me, what’s the menu gonna look like? She saw katsuobushi [bonito flakes] and asked me, ‘Are you Japanese? Do you know where you’re from? You’re not from there, you’re from Venezuela. So do your thing.’”

So, learn to cook Latin American food he did. The interventions became bolder, prouder of the evocative ingredients and traditions found in his homeland. There are the faithful recreations of national dishes, like the starter of arepa, a Venezuelan corn bread filled with avocado, cheese and red snow crab meat; the succinct odes to terroir in dishes like the Andean vegetable salad, where colourful slices of oca and mashua—tubers—chayote and prickly pear, ingredients native to the Andes are thinly sliced and artfully scattered; and nods to rituals rooted in family and childhood: for instance, the 21-ingredient molé painstakingly prepared by hand and à la minute by Mexican general manager Mauricio Rodriguez.

The ceremony of preparing the molé, which involves torching a molcajete, a traditional volcanic stone mortar, and blending successive pastes, zests and herbs using a pestle, “really complements the experience of eating, because Mono is one of these places where not only the food is great”, says Rodriguez. “What really complements the whole picture is all the storytelling about ingredients, the producers and where we went to get to where we are today.”

It’s certainly unusual that one of the best restaurants in Hong Kong should be Latin American, but then again, Mono was born in unusual times.

“What is normal? This is normal for us,” says Chaneton. He casts his mind back to the days leading to Mono’s December 2019 opening, when tear gas hung thick in the air as social unrest unfolded on the streets of Central. “We were cleaning and prepping and I was crying. Everyone was crying. And I was crying inside too, like, f**k, was it a mistake to open a restaurant in Hong Kong?”

See also: Out now: The Tatler Dining Guide 2023 celebrates a dining scene in revival

And that was just the beginning. The pandemic has seen the industry grapple with daily changing realities as the city battled wave after wave of the virus, while Mono, a fine-dining restaurant, had to experiment with selling gift hampers, conducting Instagram giveaways and launching a takeaway service, the cleverly named Stereo by Mono, to stay afloat. Chaneton, who at one point found himself personally delivering takeaway meals to save on third-party fees, credits the period with ingraining in him a visceral sense of the circularity of the ecosystem by which both big-name chefs and anonymous delivery workers live and die.

“There’s one delivery I’m never going to forget: I went to one of the big towers above Elements [in West Kowloon], 50-something floors up. I knocked on the door, the guy opened the door, grabbed the bag and shut the door in my face. That made me understand something: that we need to treat everyone with respect, because [delivery workers] are in charge of completing the experience and closing the circle.”

Key to Mono’s nimble approach has been Chaneton’s love of music and its philosophy, especially the improvisational nature of jazz. A lifelong player of the cuatro, a four-stringed guitar native to Latin America, the chef has made his father’s thousand-strong vinyl collection a key component of the guest experience, with the record player wafting tunes by the Duke Jordan Quartet, Wes Montgomery and Brazilian crooner Tim Maia across the blue-tiled dining room and into the open kitchen. Jazz, in Chaneton’s words, is what a fine-dining kitchen should aspire to, in that improvisation is only possible with precise technique, which in turn is only possible with intense training.

“I always say a chef is like an orchestra conductor because, first, you need to [understand how to] play every single instrument,” says Chaneton. “You need to know how they sound, both the difficult and the easy parts. And then you need to compose something. You need to be very attentive to whatever is happening around you. Here, we have the techniques to build something bigger.”

Don't miss: Chefs Agustin Balbi & Ricardo Chaneton open Latin American restaurant Rosita

That “something bigger” has, for the past two years, begun to take shape in the form of the Mono-pedia, a pocket-sized, ultramarine-hued book produced in-house formalising the notes, instruments, ingredients and techniques that make up the repertoire at Mono. Featuring introductions and hand-drawn illustrations of all the fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, chillies and completed dishes that have been served in the three years since the restaurant opened, the tome is given to regular guests and friends of the restaurant with the express intent of “spreading the voice of Mono, Latin America and also Hong Kong”, says Chaneton, who initially created the book as a more considered Christmas gift amid the seasonal glut of wines and panettone.

Sceptics might call it the latest mythmaking attempt by a chef, but Chaneton’s aim is altogether grander, refashioning his restaurant as a node in the flow of culture through time. “In France, we used to say that the mission of a chef is transmission. It’s not teaching, it’s not sharing, it’s transmission—to pass information to new generations of people around you.”

That’s all well and good, but there remains the task of feeding people—a task which, despite his calls to create a “movement” in revolutionising Latin American cuisine, Chaneton has thankfully not lost sight of. To wit, last December saw the opening of Rosita in Wan Chai, a joint venture with friend and fellow South American chef Agustin Balbi of Andō that serves hearty Latin American fare in more casual, homey surroundings.

“We love fine dining. That’s what we do every day; but we also like to sit at a table and share [our food]. Rosita is our escape. It’s a place where guests will see us at the table eating like we do in Latin America,” he says. And perhaps, if you squint hard enough, you might just catch a glimpse of a Venezuelan boy surrounded by family from all corners of the continent, with the world ahead of him still.

Order The Tatler Dining Guide 2023 online here

At Mono, one of chef Ricardo Chaneton’s signature dishes combines Danish Imperial langoustines with fresh Ecuadorian cacao for a tantalising shellfish entrée that speaks to his Venezuelan roots. Featuring the flesh of the cacao fruit, alongside cacao nibs and a pairing of cacao husk tea, this dish showcases the range of applications for cacao beyond merely being the base ingredient for chocolate. While fresh cacao pods are exceedingly rare in Hong Kong, this is one recipe that is worthy of the effort of procuring the exotic fruit.

Ingredients

• 4 Danish Imperial langoustines (approx. 250g each), peeled
• 2½ tsp 100% dark chocolate paste
• Fleur de Sel to taste
• White pepper to taste

Sauce

• 4 langoustine heads
• 250ml whipping cream (ideally 34% fat)
• 2½ tsp cacao nibs
• 1 tsp Okinawa brown sugar
• Salt

Garnish

• 6 fresh Ecuadorian cacao fruits
• 2½ tsp cacao nibs
• Zest of 1 lemon

Cacao tea

• 80ml boiling water
• 1 cacao husk teabag

Method

1. Devein the langoustines, clean the tails and set aside.  
2. To prepare the sauce, place the langoustine heads, cream and cacao nibs in a medium-sized pan and bring to boil. Season with the Okinawa brown sugar and salt to taste, then continue to boil until sauce becomes glossy and is reduced to a thick consistency. Strain, keep hot.
3. To prepare the garnish, cut the cacao fruits in half lengthways and remove and discard the seeds. Set the white flesh aside. 4. To make the cacao tea, pour boiling water over the cacao husk teabag and leave to infuse. Keep hot until ready to serve.
4. Pan-sear the skin side of the langoustine until browned. Finish in the oven for 2-3 minutes at 180°C. Add salt and pepper to taste, brush with dark chocolate paste, then top with grated lemon zest. 6. To serve, place three cacao fruit halves on the right-hand side of a dish and sprinkle cocoa nibs on top. Place the langoustine on the left. Repeat for each portion.
5. Serve the cacao tea in espresso cups. Pour the sauce around the langoustine and cacao fruit and serve.