CJ Jacobson

Orange County-born, Chef CJ Jacobson is best known for his ‘rustic-refined’ way of cooking. His craft revolves around hyper-seasonal, local California ingredients, where foraging plays the main part in the flavor profiles that he creates in his kitchen.

Jacobson has always been one for a good competition. Even before starring on two seasons of Bravo’s Top Chef and, most recently, winning Top Chef Duels in 2014, he attended Pepperdine University in Malibu on a volleyball scholarship and made the U.S. National Volleyball Team.

His professional volleyball career took him to Belgium, Israel, and the Netherlands, where he discovered food could be exciting and inspiring. Jacobson then returned to L.A. where he ultimately decided that restaurants would be his next career path. He enrolled at the Le Cordon Bleu-affiliated College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, graduating in 2004 and his first professional job was cooking at Axe, a highly regarded restaurant with an ingredient-driven California menu.

He went on to work throughout California at Campanile under Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton and as a private chef for VIPs such as Arianna Huffington and Guess clothing’s Marciano family.

After his first appearance on Top Chef in 2007, Jacobson accepted a position as executive chef at The Yard, a gastropub in Santa Monica, CA. The following year, Jacobson participated in the James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour and in 2012, he staged at the world-renowned Copenhagen restaurant Noma, working closely with acclaimed Chef René Redzepi. It was there he honed his skills and appreciation for every single ingredient—foraging for it, exploring it, and researching it. In July 2013, he became the executive chef at Girasol restaurant in Studio City, CA, and a year later was brought in as the first chef-in-residence at Intro in Chicago, IL which garnered three stars from the Chicago Tribune.

Jacobson is now the Chef Partner at Aba and Ēma, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises restaurant concepts focused on light, Mediterranean-style cooking. Aba recently opened its second location in Austin, TX in 2020 and in 2022, will open a third location in Miami, FL at the Bal Habour Shops.