A graduate of Yale and the Rhode Island School of Design, Hamilton began his career as a designer.
It was not until he married his first wife, a Frenchwoman, that he began to realize what a revelatory experience eating good food could be parked by a growing passion to discover new flavors, Hamilton began cooking himself.  Having achieved success early as a set designer
and a bright star on Manhattan’s “great white way”, Hamilton began to travel. It was during his trips through the sun-splashed Mediterranean countryside that he developed the palate that forms the Grill Room’s menu today.

He sought out opportunities to cook with great chefs like Alain Saillac, Jasper White, Jacques Pepin, and Jeremiah Tower, honing his skills and at the same time fueling his appetite to bring the joys of a good table home with him.

Jim Hamilton’s reputation as an instinctive cook, gifted educator and bon vivant has quickly spread
through the cooking school series he started. Feature articles by food writers from The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer quickly followed.  When he opened the restaurant in 1988 the Grill Room's ultra-fresh menu and seasonal focus on simply prepared foods -- many grown locally --won critical acclaim.

Twelve years later the Grill Room is still thriving under his leadership and Hamilton's Grill Room continues to win local and regional culinary kudos and awards.

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Mark Miller
“ A cook may be educated,” Brillat-Savarin wrote in The Physiology of Taste, “but a rotisseur (grill chef) must be born such.”

Take one bite of any dish on Hamilton’s Grill Room’s constantly changing menu and you will realize that you are in sure hands.  Mark Miller has a rare gift for grilling, in particular the fresh seafood that has earned the restaurant four-star reviews.

For Miller and owner Jim Hamilton, dining out is not as much about eating elaborately as it is eating well. Food is theatre at the Grill Room, where Miller deftly turns out fascinating flavor combinations and deeply satisfying food in the open exhibition kitchen. It’s always a great performance.

Miller started cooking professionally in 1990, a career choice inspired by a fascination with world cuisines and a love affair with food. He traces his original training back to working with Gerard Billebault, a chef at Philadelphia’s Le Bec Fin. Miller joined Hamilton’s Grill Room as chef de cuisine in 1993, and subsequently took position of Executive Chef in 1999.

Given the freedom and responsibility to develop his own cooking style and signature, Miller quickly gained a reputation for an unwavering focus on the innovative pairings and simple preparation of incredibly fresh foodstuffs.

Ask Miller what keeps him excited, and he’ll tell you that it is his time spent developing relationships with his purveyors, coaching a skilled and loyal staff, and his commitment to providing the Grill Room’s clientele with a market-fresh dining experience. Rather than cooking with rigid recipes, Miller prefers to let impeccable ingredients inspire him to improvise, with a foundation of classical cuisine always providing basic structure.

“It’s important to me that people leave the restaurant with a sense of well being,” Miller says, “having eaten both memorably and having gotten a happy lift from the experience.”