James Beard Award winner
Ben Jackson
- Discipline
- James Beard Award winner
i. Biography
Ben Jackson is the owner of Washougal Times, where he also works as chef and manager. The kitchen there sits at the intersection of line work, service pressure, and the administrative discipline of ownership, with Jackson’s cooking described as imaginative and his standards as clear. In that role, the work is not just to produce plates but to define the restaurant’s tempo, priorities, and point of view.
Coming Up
Training at Colorado Mountain Culinary Institute gave Ben Jackson the technical base that supports the rest of his career. From there, the progression through Diner, Marlow and Sons, and Reynard in the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn traces a path built through service kitchens where pace and precision matter. As sous chef at Diner and Marlow and Sons, then executive sous chef at Reynard, Jackson accumulated the practical authority that comes from repeated exposure to demanding passes and the discipline of staying composed under pressure. He later became founding chef at Drifters Wife in Portland, ME, where he remained until 2020. That role matters as a marker of authorship: not just working within an established format, but helping set one in place and keeping it running through the day-to-day labor of a new kitchen.
Where They Are Now
At Washougal Times, Jackson holds the responsibilities of owner, chef, and manager. He has described that work in direct terms: “I do all of the ordering. I do all of the menu planning.” The repetition makes the point plainly. Ownership here is operational, and the kitchen’s shape comes from decisions made in advance: what gets ordered, what gets written, what gets served. Jackson’s food is described as imaginative, but the force of that imagination is checked by a stated commitment to simplicity. “I spend a lot of time alone and I spend a lot of time cooking for a community of people, and I just discovered that I had this commitment to simplicity.” That balance—between solitary planning and public service, between invention and restraint—defines the logic of the work. The cooking is not presented as ornamental; it is presented as considered, practical, and aimed at a shared table.
Signature
Ben Jackson’s signature is imaginative food shaped by a disciplined kitchen practice. The training at Colorado Mountain Culinary Institute and the sequence of roles at Diner, Marlow and Sons, Reynard in the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, and Drifters Wife in Portland, ME, show a career built through service kitchens where technique, pace, and responsibility have to hold together. At Washougal Times, that background shows up as a style that favors clarity and control over excess.
In Their Words “I do all of the ordering. I do all of the menu planning.”
Profile updated August 2026
FAQ
Asked of Ben
Where did Ben Jackson train or study?
Ben Jackson trained at Colorado Mountain Culinary Institute.
What recognition has Ben Jackson received?
James Beard Best Chef nominee (2020).