Executive Chef Jammir Gray knew she wanted to be a chef from the time she was in the fifth grade. Drawn to art in school and the stove at home, Jammir was reading candy cookbooks at an early age and jumping aboard family trips to the farmers’ market. Her interest in a cooking career took shape after reading a 1997 Smithsonian magazine article on legendary French pastry chef and culinary artist Jacques Torres—the idea of a profession joining a love of food, craft and art provided impossible to resist.
A native of Northern California, Jammir graduated from the University of California at Davis and followed her aspirations to New York’s Culinary Center of America. After finishing culinary school in 2008, Jammir came back to California to work at One Market Restaurant, a Michelin-starred institution in San Francisco’s Financial District.
From there, she joined Kimpton Boutique Hotels + Restaurants and spent six years moving across the United States, opening restaurants for the group in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. Jammir finally returned to the Bay Area in 2017 as Executive Chef of British Bankers Club in Menlo Park, and found her way back to Financial District two years later to join Michael Mina and Ayesha Curry’s International Smoke as Chef de Cuisine.
When the San Francisco culinary world came to a halt in 2020, Jammir looked toward wine country and the Napa Valley. She joined the Compline Wine Bar and Restaurant team in early July as Executive Chef, eager to match her love of Mediterranean flavors and the rich agricultural bounty of the region to an ever-changing chalkboard menu and a world-class wine list.
