"Naomi Pomeroy is one of the most renowned and celebrated chefs in the Northwest and yet she has no classic training. Challenging the audience to not think about "WHAT IF?" but to focus on WHAT IS - Naomi talks about her life, her experiences, and what has made her successful."
A revolutionary chef, a charitable jeweler, the next-big-thing actress, an academic trailblazer. The coming decade belongs to these 10 women, fittingly dressed by emerging designers.
Special to The Oregonian
Kendall Hunter (Freelance Journalist)
Chris James White (Photography)
"Naomi Pomeroy, chef/owner of Portland's high-profile restaurant Beast, has been spotted in lands far away moonlighting in another role, one bestowed upon her by none other than the U.S. State Department. As a culinary diplomat, Pomeroy has been exercising her socially conscious chops in Myanmar by assisting a social venture that helps disadvantaged women."
Portland Monthly Mag
Allison Jones (Contributor)
Time Magazine (Photography)
"The outpouring of national support for those affected by Superstorm Sandy continues here in Portland. Following benefit plans from Riffle NW, PaaDee, and Teardrop Lounge, an all-star lineup of PDX chefs will come together for a special dinner to benefit Food Bank for New York City, the leading hunger relief organization of NYC. On Monday, November 19th, Naomi Pomeroy of Beast, Jason French of Ned Ludd, and Aaron Barnett of St. Jack will host a six-course benefit dinner with wine and cocktail pairings at Beast, with one seating at 7 pm. Each chef will prepare two courses, St. Jack pastry chef Alissa Rozos will provide dessert, Steve Jones will donate cheese, local wineries will bring the vino, and St. Jack barman Kyle Webster will craft a special cocktail for the evening."
It takes a lot of creativity to reinvent classic cuisines, but that's just what chefs across the country are doing. From elevating simple ingredients to re-imagining the molecular makeup of a dish, these chefs and their creations are showing just how powerful imagination can be.
EATER
Erin DeJesus (Editor)
Dina Avila (Photography)
1,200 pounds of pork later, Beast's Naomi Pomeroy was crowned the winner at last night's Cochon 555 cooking competition, which rolled into town once again to celebrate heritage breed pigs and give folks a worthy excuse to eat a shit-ton of pork and drink bourbon. Pomeroy bested follow chefs Vitaly Paley (Paley's Place), Adam Sappington (The Country Cat), Jason Barikowski (The Woodsman Tavern), and Rita Jia You (Lucky Strike) for the right to rep Portland in the "Grand Cochon" event later this year in Aspen.
FOOD & WINE
Kate Krader (Restaurant Editor)
Fredrika Stjärne (Photography)
Glassblowing meets grass-fed beef when the artisans at Portland, Oregon’s Esque host a dinner party at their studio, inviting star chef Naomi Pomeroy to cook in their superhot ovens.
Eater
Erin DeJesus (Editor)
Justin Stephens/Bravo (Photography)
Finally, Portland enters Bravo's addictive chef-reality series: Top Chef Masters revealed the list of established chefs competing on its upcoming third "master" season, and Beast's Naomi Pomeroy (who was robbed during her last foray into reality TV, just getting beat out on Iron Chef America) is one of the 12 chefs stirring things up each week. (In a change in format from previous Masters seasons, chefs will face weekly eliminations, just as in the regular Chef series.)
Pomeroy will compete on behalf of Seed Savers Exchange (each chef's winnings go to charity) and the title of Top Chef Master, which was won by Rick Bayless (in season one) and Marcus Samuelsson (in season two). Click through to Eater National for the full list of Pomeroy's competition; the new season of Top Chef Masters premieres on Bravo on April 6.
TRAVEL + LEISURE
Adam Sachs (Editor)
Steve Kepple (Photography)
Is Portland, Oregon, America’s newest food capital? T+L gets to know the indie chefs, coffee geeks, meat obsessives, and salt fanatics who are turning up the heat in the Northwest.
Watch Naomi Pomeroy (of the Portland, Oregon restaurant Beast) challenge Iron Chef Jose Garces in kitchen stadium using white truffles, canned Perigord black truffles, and truffle oils.
FOOD & WINE
Naomi Pomeroy (Recipe)
Petrina Tinslay (Photography)
Naomi Pomeroy, an F&W Best New Chef 2009, regards eco-activist Alice Waters as "the center of the vegetable-driven universe." At Beast in Portland, Oregon, Pomeroy serves her version of the salsa verde in Waters's 1996 book Chez Panisse Vegetables, adding toasted hazelnuts and doubling the herbs. The salsa is a vibrant addition to simple grilled hanger steak.
Portland Monthly Mag
Bart Blasengame (Contributor)
David Reamer (Photography)
For someone who’s made her reputation on meat, Pomeroy certainly spends a lot of time on garnish. While the rest of the kitchen balls itself into a fit of frenzy, she gracefully runs a massive sprout of fennel over a mandolin. Again and again. She’s in no rush. “This isn’t a competition, right?” she says, sipping a bottle of beer. She doesn’t mean it as a taunt, but considering her recent selection by Food & Wine magazine as one of the nation’s best new chefs, it could be.
THE PATTY: After gently forming the meat—Highland Oak beef bought at the Portland Farmers Market—into face-size mounds, Pomeroy covers it in salt to keep in the moisture, a maneuver that results in a buttery-soft mouthful of heaven.
SECRET WEAPON: “It’s all about crazy German condiments,” Pomeroy explains, nodding to a slender plastic bottle of Hela Curry Gewürz Ketchup. The spicy kick of curry adds a layer of subtle heat that good ol’ sugary American ketchup just can’t touch. And then there’s the mayo, a Swiss brand called Thomy that has a creamy consistency and comes in a toothpaste-tube container.
PRESENTATION: With a formidable burger hogging the plate—Pomeroy’s finishing move was a beer-washed Brewleggio cheese from Washington’s Estrella Family Creamery—she chooses a subtle accompaniment: a colorful salad of parsley, nasturtium flowers, fennel, and radishes.
REACTION: “Luxurious,” Whims sputters, temporarily at a loss for more words. “I can’t believe there’s no foie gras in here. It’s so juicy and moist.” Schroeder offers a little advice to Whims: “You could charge $27 for this in your restaurant, Cathy.” Which would still be a bargain.
The Oregonian
Karen Brooks (Contributor)
"Pomeroy's cooking is rooted in French home cooking but with a power drill of meat, like a blind date between Julia Child and Anthony Bourdain. Beast food comes from the heart and gut, changing with the weather and seasoned with integrity. Pomeroy gets graceful with souffles, and even her Steve's Cheese course contains taste jewels of poached fruit, candied nuts and spiced shortbread. But Pomeroy likes her manly foods, too --steak and eggs, hash or her signature: a charcuterie plate full of meaty deliciousness and vegetable joy. There's no mistaking the female touch, the sense of something conjured by a butcher-farmer-artist gal. But unfasten your seat belt: That plate with stuffed quail, duck liver and morel toast and greens tossed in duck-fat vinaigrette could merely be the third leg of a six-course road trip."
FOOD & WINE
2009 Best New Chef Award Profile
Why she won Because her cooking style is what she calls “refined French grandmother”: simultaneously exquisite and accessible, with a major focus on local ingredients.
Born 1974
Raised Corvallis, OR
How she learned to cook meat Cookbooks. “I was a vegetarian for seven years. But you have to do what people want. So when I launched my catering business, everything came from books. Richard Olney, Larousse, Harold McGee. It can’t be overstated, the influence of Alice Waters.”
Favorite cheap eat Portland’s Pho Oregon. “I eat pho [Vietnamese soup] twice a week. I don’t eat the meat in it. I need to know the meat I eat is sustainably raised, and at $5 a bowl, I doubt it.”
Guilty pleasure “I love mayonnaise—remember, it’s a French sauce!”
Obsession Food history. “I found a 1913 copy of The Portland Woman’s Exchange Cookbook on a friend’s bookshelf. All the contributors now have streets named for them. It inspired me to do dinners with the Oregon Historical Society.”
Willamette Week
Restaurant Guide 2008
Kelly Clarke (Contributor)
"Come Sunday morning, some people pray at church, others pray at the table—at least, it often seems that way in Portland. Beast, Naomi Pomeroy's pale-pink-painted tribute to butcher's blocks and farmers markets, is for that second group. And is it ever heavenly. Although diners flock to the restaurant's prix fixe suppers, in some ways the Sunday-only brunch at this tiny open kitchen is even more of an experience, an elegant yet laid-back affair at two communal tables where the air rings with clinking pots and bacon is considered a garnish. The dishes are worth waiting all week to taste, from impossibly light brown-butter crêpes dressed with maple-bourbon hard sauce, tart fruit, candied bacon and crunchy pecans, to savory braised pork cheek with tomato hollandaise and a poached farm egg. Dessert may feature anything from housemade blackberry tarts to anise ice cream that tastes like the best root-beer float ever. Beast's food is inarguably decadent, but Pomeroy has a knack for meshing rich preparations with fresh flavors. As with dinner, brunch is one-price-serves-all; $28 gets you four courses along with a hot French press full of Stumptown coffee or juice. What that prix fixe menu doesn't mention are Beast-only extras like catching sous chef Mika Paredes boppin' along to Culture Club's “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” while she's chopping vegetables, or the pleasure of reading the titles of old cookbooks jammed higgledy-piggledy onto a set of shelves only feet away from the oven. Thank goodness for Sundays."
Thirty years ago, chefs like Alice Waters and Lidia Bastianich—groundbreaking women who owned their own restaurants and won fame for it—were the exception. But no longer. Their efforts paved the way for some of our current favorite chefs: women like Melissa Perello (MP), Kelly Liken (KL), Naomi Pomeroy (NP), Allison Vines-Rushing (AVR), Alexandra Raij (AR), and Ashley Christensen (AC). Here, they talk with pioneering chef Evan Kleiman (EK), owner of L.A.’s Angeli Caffè, about what it means to be a woman chef today.
