Lifetime Achievement Award: Michel Jacob

By Jamie Maw

Born in Strasbourg in 1955, Michel Jacob learned his craft because of his father. “He wanted to be a chef, but after the war he had to settle for a job working for the French railway,” Jacob begins. “He cooked every Sunday for us, but perhaps he was also cooking for his dream—the one that passed him by.”

Jacob began his career at R. Zimmer. He was only 14, performing the repetitive chores that, in French kitchens, earn wrath measured in hectolitres, praise in teaspoons. It was a toil. But soon he was on his way, to work with the famous Emile Jung at Au Crocodile, a majestic restaurant in Strasbourg’s heart that for many years held three Michelin macarons. Then Jacob, only 25, decamped for Canada, bringing with him only his knives, whites and a quiet, but smoldering ambition.

He landed at the iridescent Il Palazzo before opening the first Le Crocodile in 1983. Named in homage to Jung, it was a tiny, 45-seat boite on Thurlow. He soon outgrew it, opening—in sunshine yellow new premises—to rave reviews, and attracting one of the most loyal (make that obsessive) followings in the city.

Michel Jacob is a chef first and a proprietaire second. To watch him in action is a study in contained motion: part matador, part ballet dancer, the nightly choreography is designed to produce only a precise elegance on the plate. It is a dance Jacob has been performing for 37 years, turning out star students like Rob Feenie and David Hawksworth.

Jacob has pushed himself to stay on top of his game. He is a marathoner and regularly bikes to Whistler. At 52, he has resolved his ambition, and now just wants to cook. “I have no interest in writing a cookbook—that is for the ego,” he says. “Cooking reaches into the soul, and that will be my legacy—a smile remembered, a thank you, a thoughtful note.” We congratulate M. Jacob and his family, and welcome him to the pantheon of greats who have framed the province’s culinary history, and its future.

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