Chef Jacob Des Voignes

Des Voignes comes to Fish & Farm with an impressive culinary resumes. Most recently, he worked together as co-chef of The Fifth Floor in San Francisco, where he is credited with helping the restaurant his their new position, and looks forward to continuing the restaurant’s mission of serving sophisticated, local fare. 

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.