Jacques Yves-Chapeau was born and raised in a small cottage in 1816 in Fussy, France.  As a young boy, he’d assist his single mother by riding his bicycle into Bourges to sell their homemade sauces at local shops. These shops catered to world-famous chefs who were northern bound for some of the finest restaurants in all of Paris.

“Chapeau” meaning “hat” became synonymous with “excellent sauce”, and soon other sauciers started competing with Chapeau, and some even began using various styles of hats on the labels for their bottles.

It wasn’t long before you could find all kinds of sauces, all with pictures of hats on the bottle, even though Jacques’ family only made Organic Bearnaise, Organic Roquefort, and Organic Hollandaise.

In 1836, after having served in the war and traveled the world, Jacques returned home to his mother’s cottage in Fussy.  By this time, his mother had retired and Chapeau sauces had passed on as a fad.

It was especially upsetting to Jacques that his mother no longer produced their family sauce because Jacque had acquired a special soy sauce recipe from his travels in Asia and was excited to start producing it.

Jacques decided to try to make and market his soy sauce himself in Fussy, but nobody there had a taste for such a salty sauce.  Jacques headed south to the Mediterranean hoping to sell his sauce to fishermen who wanted to preserve their catch of the day.

It was on a sunny beach of St Tropez where Jacques met the beautiful Pauola Saint-Chepelle.  They fell in love and married soon afterwards.  It was Pauola who quickly became the brains of the business and insisted that they change the name of the business, by combining the name “Chapeau” and “Chepelle” into “Chepeau”.  This subtle name change allowed them to register a new trademark and protect it against knock-offs while still making use of their established names.

There was one more thing Pauola insisted upon...they would only sell one sauce and only sell that sauce at one location at one time in the world.

To this day, it’s required in the inheritance legacy that each heir open a new store in a new location in the world and only sell L’Chepeau Soy Sauce at that single location.

Many generations and many locations later, Jacques Yves-Chapaeau IV set his sites on Dubai as the destination where he’d make his mark.

Since 1997, The Dubai Galleria in the United Arab Emirates is the only place in the world where L’ Chepeau can be purchased.

L' Chepeau Organic Soy Sauce is sold in a classic 6oz crystal bottle that represents the history of soy sauce and is true to how soy sauce is made. Please do not put L' Chepeau Soy Sauce in other bottles such as Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

Needless to say, we do not take online orders or orders over the phone for L' Chepeau Soy Sauce.

Check out these sites for more information about soy sauce:

1. •How Soy Sauce is Made
   

2. •Wikipedia Soy Sauce Article
   

3. •Flickr Photo Set: The History of L' Chepeau aka El Cheapo Soy Sauce
   

Our latest review in Time Out Dubai Magazine:

1. •“L’ Chepeau Soy Sauce  aka El Cheapo Soy Sauce, it’s ironically not cheapo, but it’s worth it, oh!”