Jack Jacobs
Vice President, Chez Goumet, Boynton Beach, FL
Prior to starting Chez Gourmet with his wife, Jack Jacobs lived in Maui for five years where he developed a love for Pacific Rim cuisine and fabulous food. He had started cooking for his family at the young age of 14 and loved it ever since. Missing family and friends, they soon moved to the mainland and opened an award-winning restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant was soon voted the best new Italian restaurant by readers of a major Atlanta newspaper. A few years later, after once again hearing the call of the ocean and the sound of the wind whistling through the palms, Jack and his wife sold the restaurant and pursued their dream of creating a unique catering company in beautiful, sunny South Florida.
Today, Chez Gourmet has grown beyond their highest expectations, encompassing both catering and party planning that has delighted thousands of customers. Jack’s goal is to create healthy, fresh and tasty menus for his clients. He believes you can get just as much flavor from fresh ingredients from the garden, unique spices and lower fat options without adding cream and butter to every dish. Chez Gourmet has become renowned for providing their clients with restaurant quality food that is full of flavor.
- What excites you most about the year ahead in the catering industry?
I am excited to see catering chefs garnering more of the respect and praise that is usually reserved for restaurant chefs. I love to see everyone from line cooks to executive chefs excited and proud about the food that they are creating for hundreds of guests at a time. - What is the best piece of business advice you’ve ever been given?
The best piece of business advice I have had is to talk 20% of the time and listen 80% of the time. As chefs we do like to talk a lot to explain our artistry and our vision, but taking the extra time to listen to a client will enable us to give them exactly the menu that will represent their vision instead of ours. - What do you hope attendees will take away from your session?
I hope attendees will learn from my session that a menu or a recipe does not have to be complicated to have great results. That it is most important to use quality ingredients and to spend the time adding layers of flavor to create extraordinary dishes. A recipe isn’t better if it has 20 steps instead of 5 steps if you use the best ingredients and flavor combinations.
