Culinary Team

Charlie Kleinman (left) and Jacob Des Voignes (right) come to Fish & Farm with impressive culinary resumes. Most recently, the pair worked together as co-chefs of The Fifth Floor in San Francisco, where they are credited with helping the restaurant maintain its coveted Michelin star. They bring enthusiasm and expertise to their new positions, and look forward to continuing the restaurant’s mission of serving sophisticated, local fare. 

Charlie Kleinman

Charlie Kleinman, 28 and a native of New York City, is a self-taught chef who first honed his skills at Restaurant Daniel in New York. He then moved on to Radius in Boston, a modern French restaurant emphasizing seasonal ingredients and the place he credits for as teaching him the fundamentals of cooking. His next stint was at Troquet in Boston, a wine bar named by Food & Wine Magazine as a top five bistro during Kleinman’s tenure.

After moving to San Francisco, Kleinman began work at the Fifth Floor, where he worked his way from line cook under then chef Melissa Perello (a 2005 James Beard nominee for Best Rising Star Chef) to chef in just three years. Kleinman credits Perello for demonstrating how to effectively lead a kitchen. “She was a huge influence on me,” he says. “She taught me how to be a chef.” Restaurant Daniel, on the other hand, showed him the importance of discipline and organization – in both life and cooking. “The motto there was if you are clean, you cook clean, and that your food will taste better when you present yourself in the best possible way.”

Kleinman is looking forward to continuing his partnership with Des Voignes at Fish & Farm, and hopes to bring a French approach to the New American, local cuisine. “Our food is simple and clean, highlighting the freshness of the products without too much busy-ness,” he says. His career-long dedication to cooking, small local farms, and seasonal produce will continue to be the driving force behind his menus.

Jacob Des Voignes

One of 27-year old Jake Des Voignes first culinary experiences was working as a line cook at Restaurant Miro at the Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara under chef Remi Lauvand, who taught Des Voignes about classic French technique. After Miro, he went to New York to work at chef Tom Colicchio’s Craft in New York City, where he first laid hands on “the finest products possible” and gained respect for the quality in a simple vegetable or cut of meat. “I learned there that when you are using good foods, there’s no need to hide with a heavy sauce,” he says. After Craft, Des Voignes – a Folsom native - returned to California and began work at The Fifth Floor, where, like his partner Kleinman, he worked his way up from line cook to chef in just three years.

Des Voignes says his new menu for Fish & Farm will continue to honor local, sustainable products and will be even more focused on small details than before. “It’s going to change everyday and will be all about intricate, hidden details,” he says. “That’s the best thing about working in San Francisco – you’ve got amazing products right at your fingertips.”

For Des Voignes, those small details – such as house made charcuterie, marmalades, pasta, pickles, and more – are so engrained in his philosophy of cooking that he’s shy to single them out. “In any kitchen that’s serious about food, these things are made by hand,” he says.

Des Voignes also lives in San Francisco with his longtime girlfriend, a pastry chef at Ubuntu in the Napa Valley.