Top Chef Star Naomi Pomeroy Dead At 49

Portland fine dining chef Naomi Pomeroy has died at 49. She died in a tubing accident on Saturday, July 13, on the Willamette River in western Oregon. She started making her culinary mark in 2002 when she and her then-boyfriend, Michael Hebb, started a supper club called Family Supper, which was hosted in the house they lived in together. The self-taught chef would eventually go on to open the influential restaurant, Beast, in 2007, where she served a blend of Pacific Northwest and French food. Her influence helped put Portland's dining scene on the map, and she served as a mentor to many other Portland chefs — particularly women.

After being nominated for several James Beard Awards, Pomeroy eventually took home a win in 2014 for Best Chef in the Northwest category. She would go on to make appearances on television shows such as Food Network's "Iron Chef," where she was a contestant in a truffle battle against Iron Chef Jose Garces. She was also a contestant on "Top Chef Masters" Season 3 in 2011 and served as a judge on "Top Chef" multiple times. Her cookbook, "Taste & Technique: Recipes to Elevate Your Home Cooking," was published in 2016.

Beast closed in 2020 after a 13-year run. The economic stresses of coronavirus took their toll on the business, and the space was eventually repurposed into a hybrid market and restaurant called Ripe Cooperative, which sold take-home food such as pastas and sauces, heat-and-eat meals, and frozen custard. Two years after Ripe Cooperative opened, it too closed, but it paved the way for Pomeroy's most recent venture: a frozen custard business that debuted earlier this year.

Her frozen custard scoop shop is called Cornet Custard, and it sells handcrafted egg yolk-rich frozen custard by the scoop and or pint, including flavors such as blackberry crème fraîche and Fudgesicle. There were plans to open up a bistro in the same building as Cornet Custard this year; it's unclear if Pomeroy's death has changed those plans. Expatriate, the bar and restaurant she ran with her husband, Kyle Linden Webster, is still open at the time of writing.