Javauneeka Jacobs, sous chef at River North’s Frontera Grill, becomes ‘Chopped’ champion

Javauneeka Jacobs, sous chef at River North’s Frontera Grill, is now a “Chopped” champion after beating 15 other chefs in a special five-part tournament that celebrated Julia Child on the famed Food Network cooking show.

Jacobs, 27, filmed her episodes for “Chopped: Julia Child’s Kitchen” in November 2022. The two episodes aired over a year later, and there was a finale watch party at Frontera Grill in December.

“I was surprised by how many people showed up and the energy in the room was amazing,” she said. “All the cheering and just how proud I made everybody. It was especially special to me because I couldn’t tell anybody that I was on the show or that I won. I had to hold it all in, so not having to do that anymore and to have lots of friends and family around me was so incredible.”

She was first contacted by the show via Instagram, Jacobs said.

“I was really excited because I’ve been watching ‘Chopped’ since I was very little, and ‘Chopped’ actually inspired me to cook in the kitchen because I love to be creative. I thought it was so cool how creative these chefs can be from getting these ingredients that you probably don’t ever use and creating something with it so fast.”

After multiple interviews spread out throughout 2022, she got word in October of that year that she was cast for a Mexican-themed episode, but she wasn’t able to commit due to a schedule conflict. She was then asked to be a part of the Julia Child episode, to which she “gladly accepted.”

“My experience on the show was very surreal, just to even be on the set, but the thing that I remember the most, because it was a Julia Child-themed episode, it looked like her kitchen,” Jacobs said. “I thought that was really, really cool that they set it up like her kitchen. Everything was blue, pots and pans, all the things that she cooked with. That was really special considering I’ve always looked up to Julia Child and watched her shows.”

Her first appetizer round dish was a tostada inspired by Julia Child’s coq au vin, a French chicken and red wine stew. She said she replaced a traditional bean spread for the tostada with garlic mashed potatoes, fried up the mystery basket ingredient chicken hearts and made a red wine reduction. The dish even made an appearance at her finale watch party.

Frontera Grill is featuring Jacobs’ first entree round dish from the tournament, a Julia Child-inspired cassoulet, although with some modifications, like pickled chiles to cut through the rich meat stew. The dish will be on the menu until mid-January, she said.

Another memory she shared was from the finale episode, during which one of the mystery basket ingredients was escargot. Jacobs is allergic to shellfish, but she said she knows how to handle the seafood safely in the kitchen. For her dish, she made a mixture with another basket ingredient, pate, garlic butter and lemon. Before adding in the escargot, she tasted the mixture for seasoning, but then couldn’t taste the final product.

“I was crossing my fingers it wasn’t overseasoned or underseasoned, but it’s something that I have experience with from my time at Topolobampo, and it paid off because the judges absolutely loved it,” Jacobs said.

The judges for the finale episode were chefs Susan Feniger, Alex Guarnaschelli and Scott Conant, the latter two having also judged Jacobs in her first episode alongside guest judge and actor Isabella Rossellini.

“I’m a fan girl of Alex, and I just love everything that she does,” Jacobs said. “When I’m cooking, it’s tunnel vision, that’s the only thing I’m focusing on. For me, the part that made me a little nervous was being critiqued in front of the whole world, but in front of the judges themselves, I just really took it as an opportunity to actually hear what they had to say and to get better.”

The prize for winning the tournament is a Julia Child-inspired trip to Paris worth $25,000. Jacobs said she’ll plan on when to take the trip after figuring out her schedule for 2024.

Jacobs started culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu about a month after she graduated high school, she said. At the time, she had scholarships for track and basketball, but her heart wasn’t set on either.

“I told myself I don’t want to take these scholarships and then be unhappy with what I do in the future, so I’m just going to jump right into cooking,” Jacobs said.

She said she went to culinary school because although she had never cooked, she loved eating. She said growing up in Harvard, Illinois, a town full of agriculture and farming, helped spark her respect for food.

She was a year into culinary school when she started as a line cook in her first of Rick Bayless’ restaurants, Xoco, about seven years ago.

“I really wanted some real restaurant experience, so I ran around Chicago looking for places to work and I got turned down a lot because I had no experience or I was too young,” she said. “Finally, Xoco let me in their door.”

After a brief stint at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT for an internship, she worked at Bayless’ Frontera Grill as a line cook while also doing some private events for the company. She then moved to Michelin-starred Topolobampo under the Bayless banner working on the line there as well.

About three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jacobs said Bayless asked her to be his culinary assistant, and shortly after she was promoted to chef at Frontera.

She said she fell in love with Frontera as a company because she knew she wanted to work somewhere that fit her morals and emulated her roots, like working with a lot of local farms for meats, cheeses, vegetables and fruit.

As for any more cooking competitions in her future, Jacobs said she “would definitely do it” if given the opportunity.

“I was really nervous, but I always say yes. You don’t know what the outcome is going to be obviously, but when you say yes to something like that, you just put your best foot forward and are happy to be there.”

sahmad@chicagotribune.com