Gayle Pirie& John Clark
Executive Chefs/ Restaurateurs
Foreign Cinema
Gayle Pirie and John Clark are two highly original talents who have been deeply involved in the competitive and innovative ferment of the San Francisco restaurant scene for over two decades. Long standing tenures at Zuni Cafe and Chez Panisse earned them critical approval for the purity, quality and consistency of their cuisine. Pirie and Clark then developed a restaurant consulting practice to create restaurant concepts and designs for a diverse and adventurous set of clients in North America, Asia, and Canada. They spent nearly two years in Hong Kong developing two new restaurants, and have traveled widely in Europe and Asia researching locally produced and artisanal ingredients. In 2001 the duo took over the kitchen of Foreign Cinema and implemented an ever changing Mediterranean influenced menu and full oyster bar, earning the restaurant three stars from The San Francisco Chronicle and seven consecutive "Top 100" rankings as well as rave reviews from the New York Times, Gourmet, Cosmopolitan, The Examiner, SF Weekly, and San Francisco Magazine.
Robert Leva
Executive Chef
Salt House
Leva’s credits are chockfull of three and four star restaurants, ranging from L’Espalier to Auberge de Soleil to Jardiniere. Despite growing up in Binghamton, New York, Leva never knew he would end up becoming a chef. Leva attended the New England Culinary Institute and his first job was working for a 20-room Relais & Chateaux property in Colorado. He then moved to Boston and worked for two four star restaurants – the highly acclaimed L’Espalier under Frank McClelland and at Hamersley’s Bistro with Gordon Hamersley.
In 1998 Leva moved to San Francisco to work at Jardiniere, where in a moment of foreshadowing he met two individuals who would later play significant roles in his career – Richard Reddington and Doug Washington. After a short stint at Plumpjack with Keith Luce, Leva moved to Napa and spent the next six years working at some of the Valley’s most well known properties: Auberge du Soliel, Calistoga Ranch and Redd. Leva was brought on as the opening chef at Salt House through his and Mitchell Rosenthal’s mutual friend, Richard Reddington.
Jordan Grosser
Stag Dining Group
This cutting-edge pop-up supper club is composed of chefs, hunters, musicians, cyclists and conservationists. The group takes on an enticing and experimental culinary approach focused on creativity and sustainability. As expressed in their mission statement, they define the heart and soul of their work not by the question of “why”, but “why not?”
Head Chef Grosser has worked in the culinary industry for the last 13 years. At age 26, he became the executive chef at Wolfgang Puck's Postrio. He later worked at the Campton Place Restaurant and was co-executive chef alongside Fleury at The Alembic. Since leaving The Alembic in June 2009, Grosser has been consulting, cooking private dinners, and helping Iso Rabins with ForageSF's Wild Kitchen series. Grosser's also made cheese (ricotta and chevre) under the name Flosa Creamery, and is a consultant for the Kimpton Group.
