Cathy Whims

Cathy Whims (born 1956) is an American chef and restaurateur in Portland, Oregon. She has been a James Beard Foundation Award finalist six times. The restaurants she has owned in Portland include Genoa, Nostrana, and the pizzeria Oven and Shaker.

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.

Career Whims became a chef and co-owner during her eighteen-year tenure at the defunct Italian restaurant Genoa (front exterior pictured in 2012).

Whims' mother was "from the Julia Child–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. and later worked in restaurants in Italy's Langhe region. Whims served as a prep cook at the Italian restaurant Genoa, before it closed in 2014.

Whims opened several restaurants in Portland, including Nostrana (2005–present), Hamlet (2015–2017), and the pizzeria/bar Oven and Shaker (2011–present). Nostrana serves classic Italian cuisine and has been described as "Portland's capital of the Negroni". In 2015, Portland Monthly named Hamlet one of Portland's best restaurants.

In 2017, Whims served as Oregon's ambassador for the James Beard Foundation's Smart Catch program, which promotes sustainable seafood 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 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. Her recipes have been published in cookbooks and a variety of other publications such as Epicurious, The Seattle Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

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". 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.