At home with business leader and art collector Pierre Chen

Back at the house, the serious business of preparing dinner begins. Chen is determined and diligent in his business and art-collecting lives, so it’s no surprise that he takes extraordinary care sourcing his ingredients. The Kobe beef comes from a specialist Tokyo supplier so renowned that it only parcels out tiny amounts to each customer. So Chen simply went back day after day and waited patiently until he got what he wanted.

His other interest is wine and, more recently, vinification: he has acquired land in Burgundy and gone into business with the Grand Cru vineyard Musigny, aiming simply to produce the best red Burgundy on the market. The venture has exceeded expectations, with the first vintage, released in spring 2017, selling at €5,000 a bottle. Again, you sense it’s the bon vivant and investor working in harmony: his business partner Erwan Faiveley says that Chen’s objective is to ‘collect, keep and drink’.

And that is the word portrait I’m left with: a man who collects, not for something to look back on or profit from in the future, but for something to enjoy and live with now. As for the calming influence of art, wine, music, food and good company, there’s a limit. It’s late, we are enjoying a Macallan ’56 (the year of Chen’s birth), but the man himself is beginning to pace around the house and his iPhone is buzzing while Steve Jobs looks on.