{"id":18984,"date":"2025-07-09T18:01:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/non-categorise\/clement-masson-the-journey-of-a-sous-chef-in-search-of-meaning\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T11:48:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:48:46","slug":"clement-masson-the-journey-of-a-sous-chef-in-search-of-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/portrait\/clement-masson-the-journey-of-a-sous-chef-in-search-of-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Cl\u00e9ment Masson: the journey of a sous-chef in search of meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Originally from the Vercors region of France, Cl\u00e9ment Masson grew up in a family steeped in gastronomy: his father was a chef and his grandmother a restaurateur. So it was only natural that the desire to enter the kitchen followed him from childhood. It was during an internship at Alain Ducasse&#8217;s Louis XV that he crossed paths with Freddy Garanjoud. This was his first collaboration, before moving on to R\u00e9gis and Jacques Marcon, where he developed his taste for herbs and vegetal cuisine. A few years later, Freddy contacted him again to open his new restaurant in Geneva: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.matiererestaurant.ch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><strong>Mati\u00e8re<\/strong><\/a>. Cl\u00e9ment accepted without hesitation, arriving in April 2023 to take up the position of sous-chef.     <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16566\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16566\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16566 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-1152x1440.jpg\" alt=\"{%ALT_TEXT%}\" width=\"1152\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-1152x1440.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-400x500.jpg 400w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-300x375.jpg 300w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-600x750.jpg 600w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-900x1125.jpg 900w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-1200x1500.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/DSC_0055-1600x2000.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1152px) 100vw, 1152px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16566\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cl\u00e9ment Masson at Mati\u00e8re \u00a9Edouard Amoiel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Culinary creativity<\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The opportunity is ideal: a new project, a new town and, above all, a different way of doing business. After the hierarchical brigades of the big houses, Cl\u00e9ment discovered the richness of a small structure. &#8220;When you&#8217;re small, you cook more, and more varied. You get to touch everything, and for someone with a passion for cooking, that&#8217;s a real pleasure,&#8221; he confides. Working with Freddy has also helped him develop his creative side. In Michelin-starred restaurants, you reproduce, whereas here, he can invent. A difficult exercise at first, but one he loves today.     <\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><div class=\"lire-aussi-item fst-italic my-3\" style=\"background: #FFF4F0; padding: 10px; border-radius: var(--radius-sm);\"><strong>Lire aussi :<\/strong> <a style=\"text-decoration: none !important; color: #005f85\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text-decoration-none\" href=\"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/podcast\/grey-matter\/\">Grey matter<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At Mati\u00e8re, the menu is created by several people, and each dish is based on a seasonal product. Ideas are exchanged and refined together. There&#8217;s no fixed hierarchy, just a close-knit team where every voice counts. The strong point of the Cl\u00e9ment-Freddy duo is their shared past. They know each other, they know they share the same vision and the same way of working, which makes their collaboration natural. This complicity is the foundation on which they have built Mati\u00e8re.     <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16568\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16568\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16568 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-1440x1152.jpg\" alt=\"Ngprodmatiere 40 copy\" width=\"1440\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-1440x1152.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-500x400.jpg 500w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-600x480.jpg 600w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-900x720.jpg 900w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-1200x960.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NGPRODMATIERE_40-copie-1600x1280.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1440px) 100vw, 1440px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16568\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Freddy Garanjoud and Cl\u00e9ment Masson at Mati\u00e8re \u00a9Mati\u00e8re<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plant passion<\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to cooking, Cl\u00e9ment is passionate about plants. He sees in it an infinite freedom, a playground where he can create dishes that make you forget the absence of animal proteins. He also likes to pick the herbs he cooks himself, as he used to do at Marcon&#8217;s. &#8220;Serving produce that you&#8217;ve harvested yourself is a complete and very rewarding process,&#8221; he explains.   <\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, Cl\u00e9ment knows where he wants to go: constantly evolve, never stagnate and create dishes he loves, without ever forcing himself to work with a product that doesn&#8217;t inspire him. The whole team has been there since the opening, supported by a great atmosphere, with no unnecessary pressure. Their objectives are clear: to please themselves and their customers, because in the end, that&#8217;s why they&#8217;re all in this business.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trained in the excellence of Michelin-starred chefs, Cl\u00e9ment Masson chose to put down his knives in Geneva, alongside Freddy Garanjoud. At Mati\u00e8re, he rediscovers the freedom to cook and invent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Cl\u00e9ment Masson: the journey of a sous-chef in search of meaning | Restaurant Geneva | Edouard Amoiel","description":"Trained in the excellence of Michelin-starred chefs, Cl\u00e9ment Masson chose to put down his knives in Geneva, alongside Freddy Garanjoud. At Mati\u00e8re, he rediscove"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_restaurants-par-lieux":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_style-de-restaurant":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[358],"tags":[],"restaurants-par-lieux":[353],"style-de-restaurant":[],"class_list":["post-18984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-portrait","restaurants-par-lieux-geneva"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26944,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18984\/revisions\/26944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18984"},{"taxonomy":"restaurants-par-lieux","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/restaurants-par-lieux?post=18984"},{"taxonomy":"style-de-restaurant","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amoiel.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/style-de-restaurant?post=18984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}