Jeff Jackson

Executive Chef, The Lodge at Torrey Pines

Jeff Jackson is Executive Chef of The Lodge at Torrey Pines, the luxury hotel, golf resort and spa in La Jolla, California. Jackson oversees the culinary concept and menu development for the resort's award-winning signature restaurant, A.R. Valentien, two lounges and a casual restaurant, The Grill, as well as meeting and banquet facilities.

Since The Lodge's opening in 2002, Chef Jackson has shaped the culinary staff and defined the menus for what remains the only AAA Five Diamond resort hotel in San Diego. Jackson's trademark style of imaginative, market-driven cooking reflects the variety of premier fresh foods available in each season from some of California's finest organic farms, orchards and fishermen. "Taking advantage of a location that provides an abundance of independent small farms and orchards, the menu is determined and influenced by what is available and in season at any given time," says Jackson.

In 2003, Chef Jackson founded the annual Celebrate the Craft festival, held each fall at The Lodge. The festival just completed its fifth year and has grown to include an "Art" element, The Plein Air Invitational. Celebrate the Craft brings together local chefs, farmers, and artisan food producers, as well as some of California's best wineries, for tasting and special meals that celebrate the bountiful, quality natural produce available in San Diego's own backyard. The festival has set the gold standard for culinary events in Southern California, gaining national attention as a gathering of "the best of the best" in food and wine. Says Jackson, "This event connects our clientele and chefs with the producers of our foodstuffs," says Jackson, "and helps us understand and appreciate the effort that is involved in growing and raising wholesome products using sustainable production methods."

Jackson joined The Lodge with more than 30 years of culinary experience. Previously the Executive Chef at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica, California, Jackson played a critical role opening that award-winning property and its sister property Casa Del Mar and established Shutters' culinary style with a straightforward approach to American and California cooking. Classically French-trained under legendary culinary expert Jean LaFont, Jackson won the esteemed USA Bocuse d'Or Culinary Gold Cup competition in 1988 and represented the United States in the world competition in Lyon in 1989. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York.

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Learn more about Jeff Jackson at www.lodgetorreypines.com/