Naomi Pomeroya famous Portland chef and restaurateur, has died at age 49.
On July 15, Pomeroy’s family confirmed for Portland Monthly that she drowned in a tubing accident.
Benton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on July 16, Pomeroy drowned in Oregon’s Willamette River on July 13. Her investigation determined that three adults—Pomeroy, her husband Kyle Linden Webster and a friend—were trapped in an “exposed obstacle in the water” while they were in tubes and on a paddle board that was attached. Pomeroy was pulled underwater and was unable to free himself because of the “paddle collar,” according to authorities.
Members of the Corvallis Fire Department recovered Webster and his friend from shore, but were unable to recover Pomeroy, according to the release. The sheriff’s office said it then began searching for Pomeroy, both by land and water, but has not yet recovered his body.
“This office is dedicated to locating Naomi and bringing her home to her family and loved ones,” said Sheriff Van Arsdall. “I want to thank everyone involved in the search and recovery mission during this difficult time.”
Pomeroy was a self-taught cook who rose to prominence when she opened her acclaimed Portland’s Beast Restaurant in 2007 with business partner Micah Camden and sous chef Mika Paredes.
After the Beast won The Oregonian’s Restaurant of the Year In 2008, Pomeroy was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2009. Then, in 2013, she and her husband Webster opened the Expatriate cocktail bar in Portland. In 2014, she won a James Beard Award for your work: Best Chef: Northwest and Pacificafter four previous appointments.
In 2018, she wrote a rehearsal for Comedor about her experiences as a woman in the restaurant industry, reflecting on toxic kitchen culture in the wake of #MeToo.
“The fact that sexual harassment is widespread in our industry has everything to do with the fact that we all agreed, at the time, that bad behavior was normal. We agree that it’s normal because ‘everyone has to vent in some way’. We were taught in the kitchen fight to never take anything that is said on the line personally,” she wrote.
“But #MeToo destroyed that. It showed us what we endure while normality is deeply and unequivocally wrong. We kind of knew it, but we were too busy imitating it and living it.”
After Beast closed in 2020, the space was converted into a market and bistro called Ripe Cooperative, which closed in 2022.
Pomeroy appeared on “Iron Chef” as well as “Top Chef Masters,” competing in the latter’s third season. Her too served as guest judge on “Top Chef” in seasons 10, 15 and 18. The show and its network, Bravo, released a statement about Pomeroy’s death, writing in X:
“The Bravo and Top Chef family send our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Chef Naomi Pomeroy. Naomi was a powerhouse chef who left an indelible mark on the culinary industry.”
Last May, Pomeroy opened the Cornet Custard ice cream shop with Paredes and was planning tO Ophysical educationn a French restaurant in the space next door.
On social media, fellow chefs including Tom Colicchio, Dominique Crenn, André Zimmern It is Amanda Freitagposted tributes to Pomeroy.
“She was a force to be reckoned with. I have always been inspired by her extreme creativity and commitment to her work.” he wrote Freitag. “She was always ahead of the curve and stuck to everything she believed in about what was the right way to feed people good food and support her culinary community.”
This article was originally published in TODAY.com
