Cinde Cromwell
Head Chef
Cinde (she/her) started her cooking career in Sonoma, in a small restaurant in Fetters Hot Springs that she co-owned with her husband Mike. They sold the restaurant, bought a 31 foot sailboat, sailed down to Mexico, across the Pacific to the Marquesas Islands, through French Polynesia, to Fiji, and down to Australia. Deciding to return home to work (baby on the way, no money left) she and Mike sold the boat, bought another restaurant in Napa, and went back to the restaurant business. There would be another restaurant, and later the opportunity to chef in several of Napa’s wonderful restaurants.She answered an ad in the Napa register for a chef opening at a startup art school co-founded by the Mondavi’s and Ann Hatch, working with a chef from Chez Panisse, and has been at The Oxbow School since its inception in fall 1999, first as souschef, and returning as exec chef in 2020. Marrying a love of travel, cultural exploration, and cooking, with the added joy of bringing that love to young people (or any people) has been her lifelong passion.
