Cyrille Azevedo, the discreet one who never stops growing
Chef Cyrille Azevedo brings together two worlds that might seem opposites. The world of a chef trained in the grandes maisons, who passed through the rigorous kitchens of Le Chat-Botté and L’Aparté, and is now capable of signing precise and tense tasting menus… and that of a cook who is just as enthusiastic about a bao, a burger in croissant bread or a beef tartare served on sourdough brioche.
Hotel training
At the age of thirty-nine, this impeccably groomed chef, who has lived in Geneva since he was 20, seems to have found what many have long sought: a playground to suit him. A world where gastronomy no longer clashes with pleasure, where technique no longer seeks to impress, but to accompany an idea.
Because before being at the helm of several Geneva kitchens, Cyrille Azevedo was also the product of a certain hotel formatting. Ten years spent in the Manotel world, then the N’vY hotel, learning precision, regularity, buttery sauces, clean cooking and that culture of detail that forges great cooks. “In hotels, we’re a bit restricted. We follow guidelines,” he says calmly.
A meeting
Then came Covid. With the pandemic, the fall is brutal. A job lost, certainties shaken and doubts set in. “When you’re in certain positions, a lot of people are there. When it all stops, you see who’s really left. Yet he continues to believe. Extras at Café Zinette, services left and right, a return to a form of humility too. “I had to start from scratch.
It was at this very moment that destiny placed restaurateur Eliott Maniatis in his path. The project? The 21 Cluba place conceived as a nod to the underground clubs of New York’s Prohibition era. A hushed atmosphere, a nocturnal spirit, cocktails and shared cuisine. A meeting almost written in advance: Eliott had spotted his profile even before Cyril applied. Above all, he offered him what he’d been looking for for a long time: carte blanche.
Home cooking
Initially, 21 Club’s cuisine was to be simple, festive and sharing-oriented. But Cyrille Azevedo soon felt the need to inject some of himself back into the project. The chef realized that, behind the cocktails and the energy of the place, there was also room for a more personal cuisine. So he launched a tasting menu, retained a few signature dishes designed for the bar, and slowly moved the address towards something more hybrid. A restaurant capable of bringing together tapas (admittedly evolved) and contemporary gastronomy in the same evening.
“I needed to rediscover this notion of gastronomy,” he confides. Not to reproduce what he had known before, but to finally build his own culinary language. Four years on, the 21 Club no longer looks like a simple party restaurant. Nor does Cyrille Azevedo look like a chef confined to a single register.
Accompanying chef
Opposite the restaurant, Moon has extended this dynamic. A freer, almost more instinctive address. Upscale street food, baos, buns, regressive snacks reworked with precision. A creative laboratory too. “I’m having a blast here,” he says with an immediate smile. It’s as if this more spontaneous cuisine has allowed him to explore another facet of himself.
More recently, there is the Sesflo in Champel. New challenge, new area, new energy and, above all, a new team. Cyrille Azevedo has taken on the role of executive chef and accompanist, rather than that of omnipresent chef. A detail that says a lot about him. Where some would seek to control everything, he prefers to pass it on. Helping others to emerge. In particular, the young chef Simon Varaine, whom he now accompanies on this new adventure with an almost obvious benevolence. “I want people to see that he’s the boss here,” he insists.
Fourth project
This ability to delegate, to trust, often comes up in conversation. Perhaps it’s because he himself has known such strong figures. Or perhaps it’s because, over time, the former ambitious chef has turned into a calmer builder. After 21 Club, Moon and Sesflo, a fourth project will soon open its doors in the Old Town: L’Escalade. A chic, theatrical Parisian bistro, currently under construction, where he is already promising a more classic cuisine, but always driven by the same desire: to please without ever betraying the highest standards. In the end, this is perhaps what best defines Cyrille Azevedo today. A chef who has stopped choosing between gastronomy and generosity, or between seriousness and pleasure. A chef who now moves forward without trying to prove that he belongs to the Geneva landscape… because he’s already part of it.
