Born in California in 1987, Aaron Jacobson is the Beverage Director of three-Michelin-star Restaurant Zén in Singapore. With 15 years’ experience across the United States, Europe and Asia, he designs pairings that range from Burgundy grands crus to long-aged Japanese koshu sake.
Raised in San Francisco, Jacobson discovered wine while bussing tables at his uncle’s neighbourhood bistro, later earning Court of Master Sommeliers qualifications. The turning point came in 2012, when Yoon Ha MS hired him as junior sommelier at three-star Benu—training ground for his mastery of aged sake and Asian-inspired tasting menus.
He then moved through California, Denmark and Sweden, consulting for the Frantzén group. In 2019 he landed in Singapore as beverage director at Brasserie Astoria and, months later, joined the team at Zén—the Asian sibling of Sweden’s three-star flagship—becoming Beverage Director.
Zén’s list now spans 1,700 labels: grower Burgundy, long-aged German Riesling, Yamahai sake and Scandinavian sour beer. Jacobson applies a “flavour-scaffolding” method: for each dish he identifies a primary axis—lactic acidity, umami, controlled oxidation—and selects a supporting drink, which might be Krug 1998 or house-fermented melon kombucha.
Signature matches include barbecued abalone with Tamagawa 2012 sake served at cellar temperature and charcoal-grilled wagyu with 2010 Monvigliero Barolo decanted for an hour—experiments meant, he says, “to expand the flavour vocabulary without eclipsing the plate’s identity.”
Convinced the future of service lies in hybrid teams, Jacobson manages 20-plus professionals and runs weekly labs on fermentation, tableside sensory analysis and non-verbal dining-room language. A regular speaker at Vinexpo Asia 2025 and Sake Matsuri Singapore, he champions the compatibility of sake with umami-rich European cuisine.
Interviewed by The Drinks Business on 17 June 2025, he stated, “Pairing is no longer wine-centric; we need beverages that breathe with the dish, from smoked cider to aged puer tea.”
