After an Implosion, John Gorham Is Starting Over in Bend

JOHN GORHAM

AGE: 50

BEST KNOWN FOR: The coppa steak and potatoes bravas at Toro Bravo.

John Gorham is rebuilding his empire and staying offline.

Just three years ago, the chef and serial restaurateur who started Toro Bravo and Tasty n Sons was on the short list of Portland kitchen luminaries. The fame started in 2007, when WW named Toro Bravo, a tapas joint on North Russell Street, its Restaurant of the Year. The praise was unceasing as Gorham expanded his holdings to include the Tasty brunch spots, the Israeli finger food of Shalom Y’all, and smash burgers at Bless Your Heart Burgers.

In 2018, when his coppa steak made WW’s list of the 12 Wonders of Portland Food, he explained the secret: “After we cook it, we let it rest, always, for a half-hour. No matter how busy we are, we let it rest for a half-hour before we serve it.”

And then, like a lot of people in 2020, he got mad on the internet.

Gorham, irate following a series of break-ins and vandalism at his restaurants, posted an image of a paintball gun on Facebook and threatened to go “vigilante” on the culprits, whoever they were. A commentator openly mocked him, and Gorham doxxed her, posting pictures of her SUV and writing “maybe something should happen to it.” His target was a transgender woman of color.

Gorham gave $5,000 to Native American Youth and Family Center, but it wasn’t enough to quell the outrage.

He and his wife, Renee, ultimately sold their stake in seven restaurants and permanently closed the others. Gorham, who’d suffered from brain cancer, checked himself into a psychiatric hospital, and then decamped to Central Oregon to start a consulting company and lead tourists on “culinary journeys” through Spain.

Like a lot of people who flee Portland, they wound up in Deschutes County. The Gorhams now live in a Redmond home with sweeping views of the Cascade Range, where they’ve plotted their return to the industry.

Gorham opened Rancher Butcher Chef in Bend in 2021, of which he remains the chef and part owner, and the couple helped open a new Spanish restaurant in Salem in 2022 (John’s the “culinary director” and Renee runs the dining rooms, the Salem Stateman Journal reported).

And, on Sept. 25, the Gorhams, joined by an RBC co-owner, filed incorporation documents for a new business at an address in downtown Bend formerly occupied by a popular cocktail bar. Gorham did not respond to WW’s calls, and the owners of the bar, the Dogwood Cocktail Cabin, declined to disclose his plans.

But the name on the incorporation papers offers a hint of a return to the Spanish theme: “Run With the Bulls.”