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the dish

From left to right sous chefs Corey Hess of Royal Dinette, Jimmy Stewart of Kissa Tanto, Alex Hon of West and Melanie Witt of Savio Volpe with their mentor Michel Jacob, second from right, at Savio Volpe restaurant.Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail

Michel Jacob is an icon in the Vancouver restaurant industry. Le Crocodile, his classic French restaurant, is an institution – a fine-dining landmark for generations of loyal diners since it opened in 1983.

"Growing up in Vancouver, it was a special rite of passage to go eat there," says Jimmy Stewart, the sous chef at Kissa Tanto, one of the hottest new restaurants in Canada. Although Stewart never apprenticed at Le Crocodile, its kitchen was a fertile training ground for many of the star chefs in the generation before him.

"Rob Feenie worked there, David Hawksworth, Ned Bell. Michel has been cooking there almost as long as I've been alive. Who wouldn't want to spend time with him and pick his brain? To have the chance to work in his kitchen is an honour."

That honour will belong to Mr. Stewart and three other rising chefs on Thursday night, when Le Crocodile hosts a special dinner, the first in a new series that aims to connect the city's young culinary guns with their mentors's mentor.

In addition to Mr. Stewart, the cross-generational pop-up will feature: Alex Hon, sous chef, West Restaurant; Melanie Witt, sous chef, Savio Volpe; and Corey Hess, sous chef, Royal Dinette. Each will prepare a course to accompany Mr. Jacob's choucroute de poisson. Thomas Haas, another of Mr. Jacob's famous protégés, will present dessert.

The $175-ticket dinner, a fundraiser for the B.C. chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier, is already sold out. But there will likely be more. Blue Water Café's Frank Pabst and Il Giardino's Umberto Menghi have expressed interested.

"Mine will be better," Mr. Menghi joked this week. So, in addition to creating substantial word-of-mouth buzz, the mentor series appears to sparking some lively competition.

And apparently, I inspired the whole thing. So now I've been wrangled into co-hosting the first dinner.

The concept began percolating last summer. I was at a pop-up hosted by Mark Singson, who was then sous chef at AnnaLena. After dinner, some industry folk were sitting around, talking about the idea of doing a future collaboration with a bunch of young chefs.

"Interesting," I said. "But if you really want to stretch your creativity, why limit yourself to your peers? You're all working in the same little bubble, with similar references and experiences. If you want to do something different, why not reach out to some of the senior chefs around town? It could be an opportunity for you to reach a whole new audience, and a chance for them to stay fresh."

I suggested Mr. Jacob, knowing that he's always been keen on mentorship. When Le Crocodile celebrated its 30th anniversary, he hosted a series of dinners with his own protégés. For its 25th anniversary, he invited Emile Jung from Au Crocodile in Strasbourg, France, to come cook alongside him. Mr. Jacob never worked at the three-Michelin-star restaurant, but he did eat there – once – as a young apprentice. The dinner was so inspiring he later named his own restaurant in homage. I don't know of anyone who respects tradition and culinary lineage as much as Mr. Jacob.

The young chefs thought the idea was a bit too pie-in-the-sky. But Joelle Bourdeau, a culinary entrepreneur from Quebec who had organized the pop-up, picked up the gauntlet. Funny, I remember telling someone the day after that dinner that "any chef who works with her in the front-of-the-house is going to be very successful." She has chutzpah.

Mr. Jacob loved the concept. "It's an honour that they would be honoured to work with me. It means that what I've done for the last 30 years is worthwhile," he said this week, comparing the dinner to the Mayor's Arts Awards, which recognizes established honourees alongside emerging artists.

Alex Hon, having just won the Hawksworth Young Scholarship Foundation, was the first chef to be chosen. He helped select the other three. In turn, these four chefs will each nominate someone for the next dinner.

Mr. Jacob left the menu in their hands. "The only thing I asked is that they respect their restaurants. If one of my sous chefs were to do something like this and cooked ramen, well, it would make no sense."

He did invite them all to dinner and asked them to spend an afternoon in his kitchen. The experience was an eye-opener.

"He talked to us about the philosophy behind Le Crocodile and how he treats each guest with the utmost respect," Ms. Witt says. "I found that really refreshing. For us young chefs, it's really easy to get caught up in the food. It's easy to forget who you're cooking for. But that's why he's so successful."

For Mr. Hess, it was the discipline of the culinary brigade that stood out. "It's very clear who the leaders are in that kitchen. In some kitchens today, you walk and you're like 'Who's the chef?'"

It will be interesting to see how these young chefs represent their respective restaurants while marking their dishes with their own stamp. For those of us who write about restaurants, it's easy to forget there is a large crew of talent behind the executive chef.

And for Vancouver, which once had a very close-knit culinary community with a lot of cross-pollination, this is an exciting opportunity to forge connections that have become looser as the city has grown.

"All the young chefs today want to go overseas and do stages with famous restaurants in Europe," Ms. Boudreau says. "It's good to remember that we have all these icons right here in our own backyard."

Braising some greens like Swiss chard and kale on the stove makes for a colourful dish that is full of flavour and nutrition.

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