Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy, ‘terrific force of nature,’ dies in accident

Naomi Pomeroy, the award-winning Portland chef and cookbook author who died Saturday in a river accident, was remembered by friends and colleagues as a “titan of Portland food,” a disruptive figure and culinary “rock star” who changed the face of American dining, in memorial posts flooding social media Monday and Tuesday.

A self-taught cook, Pomeroy rose to prominence through an early pop-up series, Family Supper, held inside her own home. From those humble beginnings, she and then-partner Michael Hebb would go on to open a series of prominent restaurants, including Gotham Building Tavern, Ripe Supper Club and Clarklewis, landing the duo spreads in glossy magazines and food TV opportunities.

When those ventures fell apart, Pomeroy rebuilt her career, eventually opening Beast, a new restaurant that helped define the scrappy ethos of late-aughts dining. Beast was named The Oregonian’s co-Restaurant of the Year (with Le Pigeon) in 2008, Pomeroy was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs the following year and, in 2014, took home the James Beard Award as the Pacific Northwest’s best chef.

In 2013, Pomeroy competed on “Top Chef Masters” and opened Expatriate, a dark and stylish cocktail bar directly across the street from Beast. In 2016, she would publish a cookbook, “Taste & Technique: Recipes to Elevate Your Home Cooking.”

Pomeroy is survived by husband Webster and daughter August. Dive teams had yet to recover Pomeroy’s body as of this writing. No memorial services have been announced.

Beast closed in 2020. The next year, Pomeroy reopened as Ripe Cooperative, a restaurant and market hybrid tailored for a post-pandemic world. It was there that she and former Beast sous chef Mika Paredes first started tinkering with their Cornet Custard. Ripe Cooperative closed in 2022. Two months ago, Pomeroy and Paredes opened a standalone shop for Cornet on Southeast Division Street, right next to the planned home of Pomeroy’s upcoming bistro.