“I just wanted to work in a fish market.”

Chef John Jacob of Destin’s Vin’tij restaurant refers to his first job in food biz, one he started in high school. The Westville, N.J. native describes the fish market as “typical” of the area, owned and operated by an Italian family, but with a difference that proved significant for him.

“There were a lot of prepared foods there,” he says, “there wasn’t anything else like it at the time,” which was in 1984-85. It was his introduction not only to professional food preparation, but to fish and seafood. “I got my hankering there for all things fish,” he says. Jacob learned everything he could about the subject, from purchasing - at New York’s legendary Fulton market - to cutting and prepping. He worked at the market for 1 1/2 years. Then, he says, “I went to Maine for a weekend, and stayed.”

Jacob moved to Bar Harbor, a well-known resort for the wealthy, and sought work in a fish market. Nothing was available, so he worked at a restaurant. “I hated it for a month,” he says. He stuck with it, partly out of a love for the area - Jacob had vacationed in Maine growing up - and partly out of his growing interest in “making something that tastes good.” This desire led him to enroll in the New York Restaurant School, for a nine-month course in his craft. From there, he interned at the Bridge Cafe, a restaurant in New York’s financial district. This was in spring and summer of 1988, and he did “a little bit of everything,” including facing the weekly appearance of “about a thousand Friday-minded stockbrokers” in search of food and drink. Jacob tired of city life and the daily commute from New Jersey. In 1989-90, he moved back to Maine and worked in the kitchen of a private club.

An impromptu invitation from a friend to “drive cross-country” led Jacob West. He got as far as Arizona, where finances compelled him to take a job as a short-order cook near Flagstaff. “I learned how to cook eggs,” he says. Though acknowledging the beauty of the desert, Jacob longed to be near water, and moved to Seattle, working at a restautant there for five years. Restless again, he called his alma mater (which has a placement service for grads) and said, “I want a beach, an island, a break.”

Among the choices available was the Straight Wharf, a restaurant on a wharf of the same name, on an island about as far away from Seattle as one can go and still be in America - Nantucket. The gig carried a promotion, and Jacob was now a sous-chef. Then he worked again in Seattle. Finally, around 1992, he had an opportunity to move to a house in a somewhat-unspoiled part of the Florida Panhandle called CR-30A. “I wanted to get back to a beach,” he says. Jacob read an article about a restaurant called Bud & Alley’s, and called about work. Told there was nothing available, he “bugged” the owner for several weeks, until an opening came for lead line cook. This was when Bud & Alley’s was one of only a handful of restaurants in the now eatery-dense area. Jacob became head chef there in 1994, staying until 1995. He was approached about a new restaurant called Frangista. He worked there until 1998. The project succeeded at first, then “went haywire.” Jacob says he was well-treated, but wasn’t happy, and left. Frangista eventually closed, then was bulldozed off the face of the earth.

In 1998, Jacob was approached by a group of people, including Tod Reber and David Biegler, to serve as a consultant for a new project, “a wine bar serving wine-friendly hors d’oeuvres.” Jacob, in need of a position, says “I pushed a restaurant on them.” In 1998, Vin’tij opened, offering a wine bar, full menu, and retail wine sales all under one roof. The menu, and staff, started small, but both have grown. Vin’tij now serves lunch and dinner daily. In addition to retail wine sales, Vin’tij stages occasional events spotlighting specific wines and vineyards. The kitchen staff has grown to four or five cooks assisting Jacob. He says everything is made in-house, including desserts. Fish - locally caught and bought - remains his passion, though the menu always has other items.

Jacob keeps busy in his off-duty hours, fly-fishing, bicycling, skateboarding, and playing guitar (not very well, he admits). In cooking for himself, “it’s fun to just get some ingredients and stand in the kitchen.” Recently, he made a batch of cornbread at home, then stir-fried some vegetables with barbecue sauce. He thinks about it.

“It was good,” he says.

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