It may sound cliché, but all too often we downplay the authenticity of real-life experiences deemed “too melodramatic” when in fact those around us live the lives we see on screen every day.

This first drama in particular belongs to executive chef Jacob Wigglesworth. Together with sous chef brother Simon and head-of-service beau Sara, the three are headlining at The Citizen, one of downtown Toronto’s hot spots and a poster child of the city’s ongoing “cuisine over clubbing” revolution.

This drama is admittedly a personal one. I’ve history with the Wigglesworth brothers. The Wigglesworths and Carons, playing at Clintons and Bushs, hail from the same pre-secondary teenage alma mater.

Simon and I are the same age and shared many classes. Jacob was a year younger, and my brother years younger still, but the four of us criss-crossed paths throughout high-school and thereafter in a way that underscores how little the age-gap divide matters post-graduation.

That only proved more true as we spent Tuesday night catching up on location at owner Johnny’s venue, with little effort and lots of laughs.

It was with great pleasure that Jacob walked me through not only his life but his menu. Here I was able to see what all of those years of watching the UK’s Kitchen Nightmares and reading Kitchen Confidential were really worth. As you might expect, not a whole lot.

I’ve never worked in the food service industry; my family was one scornful of both restaurants and the idea of paying others for food preparation. We were raised in a house where eating out was an annual, Mandarin rarity.

And so, because of that upbringing, complemented by a relevant career shift ahead, I sought out in earnest the opportunity to learn of that which I have so taken for granted since the dawn of my rebellious dining out deluge, which has been a bi-daily affair for me since I left mom for university.