{"id":5687,"date":"2025-08-16T17:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T17:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/16\/chef-ricardo-chaneton-weaves-monos-latin-soul-into-modern-gastronomy-in-india-food-news\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T17:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T17:38:12","slug":"chef-ricardo-chaneton-weaves-monos-latin-soul-into-modern-gastronomy-in-india-food-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/16\/chef-ricardo-chaneton-weaves-monos-latin-soul-into-modern-gastronomy-in-india-food-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Chef Ricardo Chaneton Weaves MONO\u2019s Latin Soul Into Modern Gastronomy In India | Food News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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At Oberoi Hotels, Chef Ricardo redefines modern gastronomy by weaving memory, emotion, and technique into every plate<\/h2>\n
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A brilliant conversation with Chef Ricardo on food, philosophy, and the art of creating experiences beyond taste<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

On two glittering August weekends at Vetro and Enoteca at The Oberoi, Mumbai (2\u20133 August), and at 360\u00b0 at The Oberoi, New Delhi (7\u20138 August), Chef Ricardo Chaneton sailed into India with the quiet confidence of a pioneer. The Venezuelan-born, Hong Kong\u2013based co-founder and executive chef of MONO has a way of explaining his cuisine that\u2019s as cinematic as the plates themselves, \u201cImagine you\u2019re in a boat that has a French flag. It departs from Venezuela and goes all the way to Hong Kong. Along the way, it collects ingredients, memories, people,” he says. \u201cMONO is that: Latin America through my eyes: the past, the present, and the future.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an elegant shorthand for a culinary language that is at once rooted and restless: Latin American emotion, French savoir-faire, and Asian seasonality translated into a fine-dining grammar.<\/p>\n

Latin America, Reframed<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Chaneton, the pop-up was a chance to gently dismantle clich\u00e9s. Too often, he argues, Latin American food is perceived as boisterous, rustic, and invariably \u201cTex-Mex adjacent” \u2013 delicious, yes, but rarely associated with refinement. MONO counters that stereotype with depth and restraint: dishes like foie gras glossed with mole; Racan pigeon wrapped in a Venezuelan-style yuca tamal; and desserts that deliberately dial down sugar to let Ecuadorian cacao, \u2018savory\u2019 fruits, and even pink peppercorns speak clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cLatin America is not only raw, rustic flavors, it\u2019s also refined,” he says. \u201cThere\u2019s knowledge, there are techniques, and there are stories to tell.” At the table, those stories are coaxed forward not with excess but with editing. A long-pepper note where you expect vanilla. A soft, citrus-bright soursop beside a Colombian dulce element. The surprise is never a gimmick; it\u2019s an argument for nuance.<\/p>\n

So Similar, Yet So Different<\/strong><\/p>\n

India, as it turns out, felt uncannily familiar. \u201cWhen I ate around Delhi and Mumbai, sometimes I said, \u2018This is Venezuela. This is Colombia.\u2019 I felt at home,” he admits. He points to the way green chutney echoes Venezuela\u2019s beloved guasacaca served, like its Indian cousin, as a welcome on the table; or how Caribbean curries and Indian masalas share a vocabulary of warmth and layering.<\/p>\n

The historic traffic of ingredients strengthens that kinship. Chef Chaneton loves reminding guests that peanuts, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and cacao all native to the Americas now feel universal across Indian kitchens. In return, Asia gave Latin America citrus, spices, and culinary ideas via centuries of trade. It\u2019s why MONO is comfortable deploying an Indian long pepper in dessert or flirting with a beautifully aromatic local mustard-seed oil he discovered mid-prep: not to mimic Indian food, but to honor Asia as the place where his metaphorical boat has dropped anchor.<\/p>\n

Adapting Without Disappearing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cooking away from home imposes a discipline: listen, learn, adjust and then hold the line. Before service, Chaneton and his team ate widely to calibrate palate. \u201cHere, salt levels run higher closer to Spain or France and spices are more assertive,” he notes. The response wasn\u2019t to rewrite MONO, but to rebalance. The pop-up leaned into a touch more umami and spice while keeping the restaurant\u2019s signatures intact. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to lose our identity or disappoint the guest,” he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a dance.”<\/p>\n

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Monkbread Colombian<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

His approach to sweetness offers a window into that philosophy. Living and cooking in Asia, he has embraced a lighter hand with sugar closer to the Hong Kong habit of finishing a meal with fruit so desserts at MONO obsess over ingredient flavor rather than saccharine heft. You taste cacao before you taste \u201cchocolate”; you finish the last spoonful because the palate isn\u2019t exhausted halfway through.<\/p>\n

Bread, Memory, and the Meaning of Hospitality<\/strong><\/p>\n

MONO\u2019s bread course is a love letter to ritual. The \u201cmother dough,” started the day the restaurant opened, is enriched with quinoa, amaranth, kiwicha, sesame, sometimes even lavender. It lands at the center of the table to be torn and shared, an act Chef Chaneton defends with the fervor of a traditionalist. The anticipation, the aroma, the passing of the loaf: it\u2019s hospitality rendered tactile. \u201cSome of life\u2019s longest-lasting memories happen when people come together to enjoy a meal,” he says. That line could be a mission statement for The Oberoi\u2019s dining rooms as much as for MONO.<\/p>\n

Pioneering a Movement<\/strong><\/p>\n

When MONO opened in 2019, Latin American fine dining in Asia was more idea than reality. The safer path, Chaneton recalls, would have been to follow, not lead. Suppliers had never handled some of his requested produce; diners associated the region with a narrow band of flavors. Hong Kong \u2013 open-minded, itinerant, cosmopolitan proved to be the right harbor. Curiosity met craftsmanship, and momentum followed. Today, Latin American tasting menus are earning stars and seats in cities from Singapore to Tokyo and Taipei. \u201cIt feels good to have been part of a movement of chefs saying: let\u2019s stop doing what doesn\u2019t belong to us, let\u2019s tell our own stories,” he says.<\/p>\n

Storytelling at MONO is literal, too. The team created Monopedia, a compact \u201cdictionary” of ingredients, tools, and chiles\u2014written in the same conversational voice Chaneton uses at the table, so guests can keep learning after the last course.<\/p>\n

Two Dishes, Two Touchstones<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ask him to pick the most personal plate and he offers two. First, a seafood-and-cacao composition at home it\u2019s langoustine or scampi; in India, he pivoted to Kerala prawns built around house-made chocolate. The dish is a memory box: school trips to Venezuelan cacao farms, the shock of tasting fresh cacao pulp, the first time he fermented beans during the anxious quiet of 2020. \u201cWhen we made our own chocolate in the restaurant, the smell, the fermentation it brought happiness,” he remembers. \u201cI told my team: never again will we buy chocolate. We\u2019ll make it.” It\u2019s technique, yes, but mostly it\u2019s belonging.<\/p>\n

The second is a dessert that stages his whole journey in miniature: Venezuelan soursop, a Colombian dulce component, an Asian inflection, and the prickle of long pepper. On paper, it shouldn\u2019t work. On the palate, it clicks. \u201cI\u2019ve made peace with not pleasing everyone,” he shrugs. \u201cBut it\u2019s beautiful when a guest moves from \u2018why?\u2019 to \u2018oh\u2014wow.\u2019 Everything is possible when you cook with intention and love.” That same spirit shows up elsewhere at MONO, a now-famous oyster with banana that startles, then satisfies.<\/p>\n

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MONO-made Ecuadorian Chocolate<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Why It Mattered Here, Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Vetro and at 360\u00b0, the setting met the story: The Oberoi\u2019s reverence for classic hospitality, an anniversary season in Delhi, Enoteca\u2019s serious wine library in Mumbai, and a guest chef determined to argue for Latin America\u2019s elegance. The menu read like a passport stamped across oceans; the plates felt like letters home. And Chaneton\u2019s boat kept its course: French flag, Venezuelan heart, Asian waters singular, as the name promises.<\/p>\n

In a dining world that often mistakes volume for voice, Chef Ricardo Chaneton\u2019s thesis is refreshingly clear. Refine, don\u2019t flatten. Adapt, don\u2019t disappear. Tell the truth of where you\u2019re from and where you are. And always pass the bread.<\/p>\n

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Swati Chaturvedi<\/a><\/p>\n

Swati Chaturvedi, a seasoned media and journalism aficionado with over 10 years of expertise, is not just a storyteller; she’s a weaver of wit and wisdom in the digital landscape. As a key figure in News18 Engl…Read More<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Swati Chaturvedi, a seasoned media and journalism aficionado with over 10 years of expertise, is not just a storyteller; she’s a weaver of wit and wisdom in the digital landscape. As a key figure in News18 Engl… Read More<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last Updated:August 16, 2025, 15:28 IST At Oberoi Hotels, Chef Ricardo redefines modern gastronomy by weaving memory, emotion, and technique into every plate A brilliant conversation with Chef Ricardo on food, philosophy, and the art of creating experiences beyond taste On two glittering August weekends at Vetro and Enoteca at The Oberoi, Mumbai (2\u20133 August),…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}