-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Acclaimed Portland chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Naomi Pomeroy has died by drowning after being involved in an inner tubing accident over the weekend. She was 49 years old. According to The Oregonian , Pomeroy was inner tubing with her husband Kyle Linden Webster and an unnamed third individual on the evening of July 13.
Pomeroy’s family told Portland Monthly that the accident occurred when their inner tubes, which were tied together, flipped over in fast-moving currents after hitting a snag on the Willamette River. Both Webster and the unnamed third individual survived, the outlet reported. Efforts by the Benton County Oregon Sheriff’s Office to recover Pomeroy’s body are ongoing.
Sheriff Jef Van Arsdall told Eater in an email statement that “debris in river, currents, and ragged rocks” currently make it unsafe for “divers to conduct any exploratory search underwater.” Despite those dangers, the sheriff’s office said they’ll “continue our efforts to recover the victim, to bring [closure] to the family and the community.” Pomeroy is credited with redefining Portland’s restaurant landscape with her trailblazing style of cooking.
The self-taught chef, who put together her first recipe at age 4, later went on to open her renowned fine-dining restaurant Beast in Portland, Oregon. When Beast shut down in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the space was used for Pomeroy’s new project Ripe Cooperative — an .