Cathy Whims (born 1956) is an American chef and restaurateur in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. She has been a James Beard Foundation Award finalist six times. The restaurants she has owned in Portland include

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, Nostrana, and the pizzeria

Oven and Shaker Oven and Shaker is a restaurant serving Neapolitan pizza, located in Portland, Oregon's Pearl District, in the United States. The base of the pizza is Neapolitan and the company specializes in exotic toppings such as pork belly, roasted corn, ma ...

Early life

Cathy Whims, the daughter of Harold Carter Whims Jr. and Ann Virginia Thomas (née Thomas) Whims, was born in 1956 and raised in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

Career

Whims' mother was "from the

Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, '' ...

–era school" of cooking, and Whims has said she "started cooking because it was my passion". Whims has been influenced by Italian-born cooking writer Marcella Hazan and French chef and restaurateur

Madeleine Kamman Madeleine Kamman (22 November 1930 – 16 July 2018) was a French chef and restaurateur, cookery teacher and author of seven cookbooks, who spent most of her working life in America bringing the rigors of French technique to American ingredients an ...

. Whims studied with Hazan in Venice in 1998, and later worked in restaurants in Italy's

Langhe The Langhe (; ''Langa'' is from old dialect Mons Langa et Bassa Langa) is a hilly area to the south and east of the river Tanaro in the province of Cuneo and in the province of Asti in Piedmont, northern Italy. It is famous for its wines, chees ...

region. Early in her career, Whims was the bread-and-pastry chef in a local natural-food restaurant; she catered private dinners in Chapel Hill and later worked at kitchens in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. She relocated to Portland in 1979 and immediately began working at

Produce Row Café Produce Row Café, or Produce Row, is a restaurant and craft beer bar in Portland, Oregon's Buckman neighborhood, in the United States. Description In 2016, Martin Cizmar of ''Willamette Week'' wrote, "Before it closed in 2014, Produce Row was a ...

. Whims served as a prep cook at the Italian restaurant

, and she later became executive chef. After eighteen years at the restaurant, she became a co-owner of the business, which was credited "for bringing fine-dining to Portland", before it closed in 2014. Whims opened several restaurants in Portland, including Nostrana (2005–present), Hamlet (2015–2017), and the pizzeria/bar

(2011–present). Nostrana serves classic

Italian cuisine Italian cuisine (, ) is a Mediterranean cuisine#CITEREFDavid1988, David 1988, Introduction, pp.101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes and List of cooking techniques, cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula and late ...

and has been described as "Portland's capital of the Negroni". In 2015, '' Portland Monthly'' named Hamlet one of Portland's best restaurants. Oven and Shaker specializes in Neapolitan pizza and was named a "best new pizza place" by ''

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and season ...

''. In 2017, Whims served as Oregon's ambassador for the James Beard Foundation's Smart Catch program, which promotes

sustainable seafood Sustainable seafood is seafood that is caught or farmed in ways that consider the long-term vitality of harvested species and the well-being of the oceans, as well as the livelihoods of fisheries-dependent communities. It was first promoted throug ...

practices. She opened the 40-seat European wine bar Enoteca Nostrana, adjacent to Nostrana, in 2018.

Recognition

After opening Nostrana, Cathy Whims received six consecutive James Beard Foundation Award nominations for Best Chef: Northwest, each year from 2008 to 2013. She was also nominated for a 2016 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in the "Home Cooking" category for a story called "Into the Woods", which she co-wrote with Langdon Cook and was published in ''

EatingWell Meredith Corporation was an American media conglomerate based in Des Moines, Iowa, that owned magazines, television stations, websites, and radio stations. Its publications had a readership of more than 120 million and paid circulation of more ...

'' magazine. Whims won the first "Wild About Game Cook-Off", which was held in Welches, a town about southeast of Portland, with her "Qualgie Con Fiche", a dish consisting of a brace of semi-boneless quail pan-roasted with a fig jam sauce; the dish was accompanied by braised greens, polenta, and a glass of Three Rivers 1999 Syrah. ''Portland Monthly'' Benjamin Tepler has described Whims as "the unofficial doyenne of Italian cooking" for the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. Katie Chang of Food Republic wrote; "Whims also helped train and usher in a new generation of talented chefs and restaurateurs... whom many credit with cementing Portland's status as a world-class dining destination". Her recipes have been published in cookbooks and a variety of other publications such as

Epicurious ''Epicurious'' is an American digital brand that focuses on food and cooking-related topics. Created by Condé Nast in 1995, it is headquartered at the One World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, where it is part of the publisher's Foo ...

, ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

'', and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''.

Personal life

Whims is married and lives in Portland, Oregon. Her partner David West co-owns Nostrana and Enoteca Nostrana. She has described herself as a "born-again Italian". Whims has a sister who also works in the restaurant industry. Following her mentor Hazan's death in 2013, Whims commemorated her by creating a special tribute menu at Nostrana. Nostrana's menu has featured recipes that were inspired by Hazan, as well as dessert recipes Whims learned from American chef, baker, and writer

Nancy Silverton Nancy Silverton (born June 20, 1954) is an American chef, baker, and author. The winner of the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef Award in 2014, Silverton is recognized for her role in popularizing sourdough and artisan breads in the Unit ...

References

External links