Top Chef Masters Star Naomi Pomeroy Hit a Branch with Her Inner Tube Before Fatal Accident, Her Husband Says

Naomi Pomeroy’s husband Kyle Webster shared details of his wife's fatal inner tube accident.

The Top Chef Masters star died on July 15 at age 49 after drowning on the Willamette River in Oregon, Portland Monthly first reported. She is survived by her daughter August, 23, and Webster, who told the New York Times on July 16 that her death was a result of their tubes hitting a partly submerged branch.

On the afternoon of the accident, the couple floated down the river with a friend, tying together two inner tubes and a paddle board. Their floating devices hit the branch, causing all three of them to fall into the choppy water, Webster told The Times. While he and the friend managed to get to shore, Pomeroy did not. She was not wearing a life jacket. 

As of July 16, the search for her body is still ongoing, according to multiple reports. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office initially found her body underwater, but the waters were too rough for them to retrieve it.

PEOPLE reached out to the Benton County Sheriff's Office for an update but did not immediately hear back.

Webster grieved his wife in the The Times obituary, sharing that she was happy and thriving in recent months.

“Naomi was pretty advanced in her understanding of this cool ride we’re on,” he told the newspaper. “She was more at peace in the last six months than she -

‘Still a Couple Weeks Left’ ,...

ever was before. She said she had done everything she was put here to do.”

Pomeroy, who appeared on cooking competition shows, including Top Chef Masters in 2011, was a celebrated chef and restaurateur in Portland and the owner of renowned restaurants Beast, Expatriate and Cornet Custard. 

An Oregon native, she opened her first culinary venture at age 24 with Ripe Catering in 1999. Shortly afterward, she launched an underground supper club called Family Supper before “going legit” and opening Gotham Coffee Shop in 2002, Clarklewis in 2004 and Gotham Tavern in 2005, according to her cookbook author bio.

After those ventures closed or were sold, Pomeroy opened up the buzzy and intimate Beast in 2007. In 2020, the space then morphed into Ripe Cooperative, a marketplace and restaurant that sells preordered meal boxes.

As recent as this June, she opened Cornet Custard, which started as a frozen custard pop-up in her flower shop Colibri. She also announced her fourth year of Garden Party, a summer seasonal restaurant.

Amid all of her business ventures, Pomeroy also published a cookbook, Taste & Technique, in 2016. She was awarded several accolades, including Food & Wine’s Best New Chef in 2009.

According to The Times, she planned to open another restaurant this fall. 

Related Articles

Follow Us

Carlos Marqués-Marcet Orchestrates a Del,...