Swiss luxurious watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre’s newest collaboration below its Fabricated from Makers programme, unveiled at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2025, is an experimental gastronomic journey into the world of chocolate on the well-known 1931 Café with Chef Chocolatier Mathieu Davoine paying homage to the origins of the model’s iconic watch, Reverso.

Pushing the Boundaries of Classical Artwork

The Fabricated from Makers programme attracts a parallel between the worlds of horology and artwork, fostering collaborations with artists, designers, and craftsmen from disciplines exterior watchmaking, who share the Maison’s values of creativity, experience, and precision. The programme challenges the notion of classical artwork as static or certain to the previous, as a substitute emphasising its steady reinvention and positioning it as a number one supply of creativity right this moment.

Simply as right this moment’s classics had been as soon as seen as radical at their inception, the Fabricated from Makers programme explores how conventional types and methods will be  reinvented by means of new supplies and media, providing a contemporary perspective on the dialogue between previous and current. Just like the watchmakers of La Grande Maison, these artists respect custom as a basis for creativity, whereas pushing boundaries and exploring new horizons, highlighting how each watchmaking and classical artwork categorical human creativity, replicate the tradition of an period and set off feelings.

Up to now, the Fabricated from Makers neighborhood has embraced the worlds of latest artwork, gastronomy, music and perfumery – with artists together with Zimoun (Switzerland), Michael Murphy (USA), Guillaume Marmin (France), lettering artist Alex Trochut (Spain/USA), pastry chef Nina Métayer (France), mixologist Matthias Giroud (France), digital media artist Yiyun Kang (Korea), musician TØKIO M¥ERS (UK), multi-media artist Brendi Wedinger (USA), Chef Himanshu Saini (India), avenue light-painter Roy Wang (China) and perfumer Nicolas Bonneville (France).

This new collaboration with Mathieu Davoine (France/Switzerland) provides the artwork of chocolaterie to the Fabricated from Makers portfolio.

The Chocolate Craftsman 

This yr, Jaeger-LeCoultre invitations company to take pleasure in a novel gastronomic expertise primarily based on chocolate by means of its collaboration with The Chocolate Craftsman, Mathieu Davoine. The Geneva-based chef chocolatier’s experimental strategy to chocolate-making combines time-honoured craftsmanship with avant-garde methods and distinctive inventive creativeness to discover a brand new realm of flavour and artistry primarily based on chocolate.

A craftsman at coronary heart, he unites inventive expertise and daring creativeness with nice technical talent, combining a fascination with flavour and texture with a sculptor’s strategy to visible presentation. Taking inspiration from sources as diversified as a portray seen in a museum or one thing noticed within the pure world, he spends an excessive amount of time testing and enjoying with new concepts in his laboratory.

For Mathieu Davoine, chocolate supplies an ideal outlet for his creativity, enabling him to dive deep into the complicated course of of remodeling cacao beans into beautiful creations that seize the magic of chocolate. It permits him to mix gastronomy with inventive creativeness and craftsmanship.

“For me, discovering chocolate was a revelation,” he defined.

“I can not consider every other single ingredient that gives a lot inventive risk because of all the types it could actually take – powder, liquid, cream, foam, jelly, crunchy stable and extra. And if you end up keen to experiment with flavours and transcend the standard blends, there’s virtually no restrict to the chances.” 

Encapsulating Mathieu Davoine’s signature fashion, the chocolate delights that he has created solely for La Grande Maison problem preconceptions and push the boundaries of what chocolate will be.

Praline, truffle fudge: utilizing chocolate in all its types, he has mixed acquainted and unconventional textures so as to add an thrilling sensory twist to the tasting expertise.

Olive, mushroom, pollen: with ‘unattainable’ blends of flavours and substances, he has challenged the boundaries of chocolate gastronomy to create new and stunning harmonies, with layers of skilfully blended and balanced flavours that evolve within the mouth.

Micro balls, sculptures, trompe-l’oeil: within the visible presentation of the delights, he has employed trompe-l’oeil methods, harnessing sudden proportions, shapes and floor finishes to create optical illusions that shock and delight, elevating the expertise of biting into the chocolate.

Difficult the Preconceptions of Chocolate Gastronomy

With the 4 chocolate delights that might be supplied to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s company on the 1931 Café, Mathieu Davoine pays homage to the origins of the Reverso by taking visible inspiration from the world of polo, and to the house of Jaeger-LeCoultre by incorporating substances from the Vallée de Joux.

“The inventive route that Jaeger-LeCoultre gave me was a really attention-grabbing problem,” Mathieu stated.

“Whereas the visible richness of polo offered many concepts, I additionally wished to specific the sensation of polo, so I’ve mixed literal and conceptual references to totally different facets of the sport. To incorporate substances from the Vallée de Joux, I needed to assume past the apparent nuts and berries which can be historically related to chocolate and mix them with different, very unconventional flavours and smells from the valley.”

Harmonie de Chocolat celebrates the multi-faceted character of chocolate, its swirling form symbolising the power and motion of gamers and horses on the polo area. A chocolate sablébiscuit is topped withdark chocolate mousse, which conceals the shock of crisp cacao ‘pearls’, and completed with a milk chocolate ganache sprinkled with hazelnuts.

Galop des Bois combines the textures of crisp praline, ethereal mousse and smooth sponge cake within the type of a polo ball surrounded by the letters of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s identify executed in darkish chocolate. It’s completely balanced flavour profile combines white chocolate and vanilla with Vallée de Joux substances: forest fruits, hazelnuts and – unexpectedly – porcini mushrooms.

Éclat de Caviar unites the flavours of black olives and chocolate, complemented by an infusion created from the fragile younger shoots of Vallée de Joux fir timber. Offered in a metallic tin evoking the shoe polish for the polo gamers’ boots, the crisp coating of the shiny chocolate ‘caviar pearls’ delivers a sensory shock, as they offer strategy to an unctuous chocolate cream, ethereal olive tapenade and crunchy biscuit.

‘Douceur du Cavalier’ elevates the petit écolier – a classical chocolate-coated biscuit beloved by each French faculty little one – into a classy chocolate deal with for the gamers coming back from the polo area. The crisp sablé biscuit is made to a particular recipe incorporating Vallée de Joux pollen; it’s topped with as unctuous chocolate ganache and meadowsweet jelly, the entire ensemble being coated in milk chocolate.

The tasting expertise is amplified by the visitor’s participation: in every case, the particular person can improve the dosage of the respective Vallée de Joux ingredient earlier than tasting the delight. To enhance the 4 delights, Mathieu Davoine has created a particular beverage created from the fleshy pulp – also called baba or mucilage – that surrounds the beans inside a ripe cacao pod.

With a mildly candy and tangy ‘tropical fruit’ flavour, the pulp is important to the pure fermentation course of that the beans should undergo earlier than being dried and ultimately roasted. Sipped between every of the bites, it acts as a palate-cleanser and an extra layer of flavour.

“We’re delighted to collaborate with Chef Chocolatier Mathieu Davoine,” stated Jérôme Lambert, Chief Government Officer of Jaeger-LeCoultre.

“His expertise, experience and originality add an thrilling new dimension to our Fabricated from Makers programme, and the values that he shares with our Maison – ardour, humility and a dedication to craftsmanship and innovation – make him a pure accomplice for us.

“At Jaeger-LeCoultre we strongly consider within the convergence of workmanship throughout many disciplines, and dealing with a maestro of chocolate like Mathieu Davoine permits us to discover uncharted territories the place the worlds of artwork, gastronomy and watchmaking intersect.”

@jaegerlecoultre