Milwaukee’s Dan Jacobs is currently cooking his heart out on “Top Chef,” season 21. Four episodes in, we’ve seen him hold his own in the cooking challenges, reveal a serious health diagnosis and emerge as a funny, self-deprecating team player. I got to interview Jacobs by phone about his once-in-a-lifetime experience – so far. From the physicality of doing this show to possibly featuring a “Top Chef” dish at one of his restaurants in Milwaukee, Jacobs shared some of his thoughts about this wild ride.
Can I call you a celebrity chef now?
No, please don’t! … It’s really fun and some of the most rewarding stuff has been after the show. I’ve had somebody DM me how inspiring it was or tell their story about having a parent who had Kennedy’s disease [the neuromuscular disorder that Jacobs has] or have ALS or are going through something else. I think that’s been the coolest part of this. And there’s these two kids, these brothers who watch the show and came in [to DanDan] for dinner. I was at the host stand and they were like starstruck. It was the cutest thing I’ve seen.
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Do you think your “Top Chef” experience has made you a better chef?
I think [“Top Chef’] forces you to, it forces you to have to think in a way that’s completely unconventional to how we would do stuff in a kitchen in a restaurant. It’s like, alright, man, this is gonna be it, you gotta go with it. I was always kind of like that quite a bit. But it definitely pushes that art.
What have you learned?
I think these first three episodes I feel very confident where I am in the game. I’m performing close to or on top in these first three episodes. I’m starting to feel really good about what I’m able to do and especially how my body’s able to perform. That third episode was really tough. It was uneven ground. We’re in a field. It’s like a thousand degrees. There’s bees everywhere. It was a real challenge for me physically. This was back when I only had the one AFO brace [ankle-foot orthosis, a device to help mobility]. I now have two of those braces, wearing one on each leg now. That was really tough. That was pretty physically exhausting and demanding.
There was a moment in the kitchen where you slipped, right?
I totally did. Because we were, as a group, working like savages. That was nobody cleaning up after themselves and throwing sh-t on the floor. I slipped, I fell, it sucked. I’ve gotten really good at falling. I minimize the amount of damage I do to myself when I slip and fall. And I think I still held onto to the majority of my gnocchi. Did you hear me go, “My no-key”?
Yes, yes, I did hear that!
Me and my brother were laughing about that. It was really funny. But I was able to hold onto most of it. The way I went down, I was still able to hold on to the pan. I was more worried about losing my gnocchi than I was getting hurt.
You’re like comic relief, Dan. You have some of the best lines!
We’re like that here at DanDan. Part of this is that I talk to myself a little bit and I don’t realize it. The first episode, it was me just muttering to myself. And I do like to do that in a kitchen – I like to keep things light. I mean, the kitchen, man. We all work hard as hell and it’s nice to have a little bit of levity in there.
And it must break up some of the tenseness you all feel.
Yeah. You don’t realize until you’re, like, in it how mentally challenging this is, you know. Tom [Colicchio] hits on it, I think, about it being a mental game. He’s right. It 100% is. And I think that’s when we all start to think of this as more than just physical. At the cheese fest, you really start to realize it’s like 70% mental and 30% physical. Or maybe 80% mental. It’s just so much, you just have to be strong in your brain, and be able to, like, focus and push that voice in your head that’s telling you how not good you are, or how you’re screwing things up or whatever. Like, it’s good. I think you have to be able to push that voice out.
Did that ratio surprise you – how challenging that would be mentally for you?
Yeah, 100%. It made me real happy that I did some work on myself before I went to filming. Because, I mean, you don’t really know what to prepare for. I went into learning how to meditate – without a cell phone guided app [laughs]. Learning how to turn that noise down.
That physicality, everybody’s always running!
I don’t run at all. I do, in these episodes, what is called zero running. Let these kids [other contestants] run around, it’s fine! It was something that early on, they were like, “I want everyone to run into Whole Foods.” Well, let’s see if I can do it. I almost, like, ate sh-t right away. So I’m like, you know what? I’m just not going to run. I can’t tell you how important down time was. Whenever we could rest, I rested. If we had a chance to sit, I was sitting. I was trying to take care of myself as best as possible.
Did you feel any pressure – or extra confidence – from being the only contestant from Wisconsin?
Probably a little from column A and C. I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. The regional stuff. I kinda knew beer and cheese. The confidence was the familiarity part – I knew my way around Whole Foods because that’s my grocery store. … But there was a lot of pressure. You know, I am the only one representing Wisconsin so I want to represent us in a way that shows how, you know, just how fun we are and how much I love the city. I really think that this opportunity has the potential of really kind of pushing Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin into that next level. In that first episode, we had Paul [Bartolotta] and we had Adam [Siegel], and I know them both really well. And they’re not going to judge me nicer than anyone else. In fact, they’re probably going to judge me harsher because they do know me, you know? And then lastly, I’m going to give you gratitude because, again, I’m so grateful for the opportunity. There’s an opportunity to showcase the city and state in such a light. We’re so cool we don’t even know we’re cool yet.
Are we ever going to get to sample any of the dishes you made on “Top Chef” at either of your restaurants?
I’m very happy with the three elimination dishes I did. That soup [in episode 1] was delicious! The popcorn [a dish in episode 2] was really fun. It was different. It was really weird. I did this like savory popcorn pudding. It was a dessert preparation but in a savory way. Clam basil and popcorn, and then I made it look like a bowl of popcorn. That’s definitely one that’s gonna make some sort of appearance come corn season on the menu at EsterEv.
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How did you all get along? The contestants all seem pretty supportive of each other.
As a whole, we get along incredibly well. I mean, you’re in this weird situation. It’s hard to explain to people unless you actually go through it. You start out, like, 15 people and there was like a couple [of them] that knew each other. But for the most part, we didn’t know each other super well. It felt special. It really did at the time and it still does now. What you’re seeing is 100% legit. That’s the cool part. People are just themselves pretty much.
And you get those lines in, Dan! “Chefs, 5 minutes!” or whatever.
I don’t know why they use my voice. It’s like, all of a sudden you hear a disembodied Kermit the Frog voice in the corner. My niece, she’s 7, she said ‘Uncle Dan, why are you so loud? [laughs] When the TV’s on, all I hear is you.’”
“Top Chef” airs Wednesday nights (8 p.m.) on Bravo.
