Naomi Pomeroy in 2012. Pomeroy was one of the most celebrated chefs in the Pacific Northwest from opening the acclaimed restaurant Beast in 2007 to winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest in 2014 to co-founding of the Independent Restaurant Coalition during the early days of the pandemic.
Naomi Pomeroy / Courtesy of Portland Monthly
The city of Portland and much of the culinary world is in mourning. Last weekend, James Beard award-winning chef and icon of Portland’s culinary landscape, Naomi Pomeroy, died in an accident on the Willamette River.
For more than two decades, Pomeroy was one of the most celebrated chefs in the Pacific Northwest. From opening the acclaimed restaurant Beast in 2007, to winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest in 2014, to co-founding the Independent Restaurant Coalition during the early days of the pandemic, Pomeroy’s accomplishments and accolades were innumerable.
Karen Brooks is a journalist and the Food Critic at Large for Portland Monthly who has covered Pomeroy’s career since the early aughts. She joined OPB “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori to look back at Pomeroy’s life and legacy.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Crystal Ligori: I know you’ve covered Naomi Pomeroy’s work since essentially the beginning. You even have a chapter about her in your book “The Mighty Gastropolis”. Can you talk about what the early days were like for Naomi and her rise to fame?
Karen Brooks: For me, the story starts in 2003. For many years, Portland had this sweet, quietly serious ‘farm to table’ food scene. And then the ground shifted. Restless young cooks wanted to create something of their own. No white tablecloths, no salmon on every plate. Enter Naomi Pomeroy, out of nowhere.
She’s in her twenties, she’s never cooked professionally. And suddenly she’s the co-founder of two rule-breaking restaurants that recruit Portland’s next great talent to the cause. So first, there was Ripe, it was like a new kind of dinner party starring chefs in T-shirts.
At Clarklewis, I’ll never forget the sight of gargantuan pigs being wheeled through the dining room, right past our tables where we were eating, then butchered right in the open kitchen. And there we were eating ecstatic nose-to-tail cooking, by candlelight, next to the train tracks. I named it Restaurant of the Year one month after it opened in 2004.
I ran into an old guard chef after his first visit to Clarklewis. I remember him saying, “It was magic. They were having fun, a party.” I thought: ”That’s what I want to do. It doesn’t have to be stuffy.” So Portland became this lauded, rock-and-roll food city. And Naomi was there from the beginning.
She helped pioneer a style of dining that’s now found around the country from Nashville to New York. So think about it: If you’ve eaten at a Portland restaurant in the past 20 years, you’ve been touched by Naomi Pomeroy, whether you knew it or not.
Ligori: It’s so true. I feel like many people only know Naomi’s work from Beast, which was incredibly celebrated. So when does that restaurant enter the story?
Brooks: When Beast opens in 2007, it’s really kind of Naomi’s coming out party. It’s her first solo project. I mean, some industry people had groused that she had never worked the line, never paid her dues in a real restaurant. Well, it turned out that she was more than just a capable cook or a vision executor. She conjured a remarkable vision of fine dining with little more than two beautifully set tables, Joy Division and girl power in a jerry-rigged kitchen. People came from all over the country to eat at Beast, to have this extremely personal experience not found elsewhere.
Man, she had style. The night unfolded kind of like a badass ballet. Everything quietly cooked and plated just steps away from our communal tables under theatrical lights. It was confident. It was unapologetic. And it inspired so many young women to be their own boss. And over the years I feel we’ve watched her grow at Beast from a seat-of-pants rebel to a James Beard award-winning chef, an industry leader to Portland’s food mom, all by age 49.
Ligori: What do you remember most about the food that Naomi made?
Brooks: Naomi didn’t reinvent the food wheel, she just cooked us into a blissful coma. Imagine Julia Child on a blind date with Anthony Bourdain. That’s how I remember Naomi’s style. Every detail was so thoughtful. Even a cheese plate looked like a jewel box. Her foie gras bonbons were legendary. I’ve never eaten a more luscious pot pie. One of my last memories is eating Naomi’s BLT. It just took your breath away. I remember thinking this should be framed and hung in the Guggenheim Museum.
Ligori: How do you think we can honor Naomi’s memory?
Brooks: That’s a good question. We don’t need to erect a statue. I think the best way to honor Naomi is to find something you love and make it your own with as much care and precision as possible. But also to support the types of restaurants that make Portland special. As Naomi proved they are the heart and soul of our city.
This is an immeasurable loss. Portland has lost its best food friend.