The James Beard Award-winning Portland, Oregon chef and restaurateur Naomi Pomeroy died on Saturday in an inner tubing accident. She was 49.
Her family confirmed the drowning in the Portland Monthly on Monday. Pomeroy was enjoying a day on the Willamette River and her inner tube flipped in the fast-moving current.
A cookbook author and “Top Chef Masters” contestant, Pomeroy is most known for the Portland restaurant Beast, which she co-owned with her husband, Kyle Linden Webster, along with the concepts Expatriate and Yaowarat. This year, she had launched the ice cream shop Cornet Custard, and was reportedly planning a new French restaurant.
In 2014, she won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific for her work at Beast, after being nominated four times prior. She was also known for her work as a co-founder of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which advocated for independent restaurants during the pandemic and its aftermath.
U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer on Monday said in a statement, “What a loss. Naomi was not just a fabulous chef and entrepreneur, but an amazing human being. Her impact went far beyond Portland, helping establish our leadership and reputation for food excellence. She will be greatly missed.”
Other tributes from across the restaurant industry poured in on Tuesday.
The chef was described as a friend and mentor to many in the industry, one who advocated for women, in particular, in the food world. Others called Pomeroy “a modern day Alice Waters.”
Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Nancy Silverton posted that Pomeroy was part of a “club” of women chefs, and that her undeniable talent and work ethic helped catapult Portland as a top culinary destination.
Chef Andrew Zimmern posted that Pomeroy was “not afraid of sending a text with a soft gentle idea about life or a raging urgent desire to change something in the world right fucking now.”
Her food at Beast was “glorious,” he added, noting that she “remade the Portland restaurant scene.” He also praised her work with the Independent Restaurant Coalition.
He also stressed the need for those in the industry to be “loving enough that people in your life know it.”
The last few months have been hard, he wrote, “But maybe the answer is to be more loving and take all the armor off. Not some of it. All of it.”
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