It’s been just over a year since Portland lost an icon of its culinary community. For decades, chef Naomi Pomeroy shaped the city’s culinary scene.
“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,” said food critic and journalist Karen Brooks.
The James Beard award-winning chef died in an accident on the Willamette River in July 2024. Now a year on, her legacy continues with a restaurant Pomeroy was in the midst of opening at the time of her death.
“The concept was a result of many coffees and glasses of wine together, talking about what we felt like Portland was missing,” said Luke Dirks, the Portland restaurateur collaborating with Pomeroy. “[We wanted] to do something that would hopefully help Portland have something to be excited about post-pandemic.”
Naomi Pomeroy during a Garden Party event in June 2024. The James Beard award winner was one of the most celebrated chefs in the Northwest, having influenced Portland's culinary scene for more than two decades. Pomeroy died in an accident on the Willamette River on July 13, 2024.
Zoe Ching / Courtesy of L'Echelle
Dirks and Pomeroy were working together at a time when the city’s culinary landscape was changing after a wave of restaurant closures spurred by the pandemic.
By then, Pomeroy had stepped back from the culinary spotlight. Her influential restaurant Beast closed in 2020, but she was still consulting for other restaurants and working with her collaborator Mika Paredes.
“My first job here in Portland was at Clarklewis working with Naomi Pomeroy,” said Paredes. “Later, we went off and did a restaurant called Beast, then pivoted to Ripe Cooperative and then ended up opening up a frozen custard shop called Cornet Custard.”
For 20 years, the pair worked side-by-side in kitchens across the city, but the custard shop was a departure for Paredes. It took her away from the day-to-day demands of working in a kitchen, giving her the runway to focus on a craft she had fallen in love with.
“Cornet was pretty much turnkey because we’d been running as a pop-up for over a year,” said Paredes. “And we had developed the recipes for over 15 years.”
Paredes explained that the space for Cornet Custard, located in a small storefront on Southeast Division Street, came as somewhat of a “package deal” with the restaurant space next door.
The space was previously home to the Woodsman Tavern, a notable spot in its own right for most of the 2010s. During the buildout, they assembled a small team for intimate "Garden Party" dinners in the backyard, building excitement for the forthcoming restaurant. Two weeks after their first event, Pomeroy tragically died.
“Everything kind of hit pause while also being completely in motion,” said Paredes. “A lot of thoughtfulness, a lot of discussions, went on about what was the future of this idea, of this concept, like ‘is this going to happen or should it?’”
Related: Award-winning Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy drowns in Willamette River
In the end, bolstered by what Dirks said was “enthusiastic support” from Pomeroy’s family, the decision was made to move forward with opening the French bistro L’Echelle, which now was in need of an executive chef.
As Pomeroy’s longtime collaborator, Paredes was first asked for input on the chef selection and eventually approached to take on the role herself, which she declined.
“I wasn’t ready to be so extremely customer-facing and take on other people’s grief,” Paredes explained. “It was difficult to navigate because grieving is so personal, it’s not linear, and you also want to maintain some professionalism and be there for your customers and also for your staff.”
Mika Paredes, left, and Luke Dirks at L'Echelle in Portland, Ore., which opened May 29, 2025.
Zoe Ching / Courtesy of L'Echelle
Eventually, Paredes did accept the role of executive chef at L’Echelle, which opened at the end of May. And though the grief of Pomeroy’s passing is not gone, it’s softened by seeing the lasting impact she had on Portland’s culinary world.
“Grief is not something that you usually associate with a dining experience,” but, said Dirks, “People are showing up with heavy hearts, so you have to be willing to hold that and for us, we sort of did our crying off-camera and then held space to be a place of uplifting hospitality.”
And in holding space for their community, Dirks said they’re seeing the same in return, something Pomeroy had wanted for L’Echelle all along.
“We wanted to do something that felt like it was for people that were working there, for the neighborhood, for the Portland culinary scene.”
