Justin Woodward, the longtime chef of now-closed fine dining institution Castagna and its sister restaurant, OK Omens, has died at the age of 43. An alumnus of New York palace of molecular gastronomy wd~50, Woodward was known for his avant-garde approach to contemporary fine dining, particularly pastry, and was a James Beard Award semifinalist on seven separate occasions, making the list of finalists five times. “Justin took great pride in his craft creating menus and dishes,” his obituary reads, “using food to show his love.” The Oregonian attributed his cause of death to liver failure.

Woodward was a passionate chef from a young age, studying the culinary arts at the Art Institute of California - San Diego, cooking at luxury resort L’Auberge Del Mar in California, and staging through lauded restaurants around the world, including Noma and Eleven Madison Park. He eventually landed at New York’s famed wd~50 as a pastry cook, before he moved to Portland to work under chef Matthew Lightner at Castagna. When Lightner left for New York’s Atera in 2011, Woodward took over the kitchen as the Southeast Portland restaurant’s executive chef. There, he created iconic dishes like the restaurant’s famed potato ice cream dessert, with its ripples of meringue skin. “His best ideas were excitedly out of the box,” Portland Monthly critic Karen Brooks wrote of Woodward in 2023. “For months, I obsessed over his edible ‘terrarium,’ layered in a glass with dreamy onion custard and bright green onion–stalk puree standing in for soil below a greenhouse of leaves and flowers.”

In 2018, Woodward, celebrated sommelier Brent Braun, and Castagna owner Monique Siu transformed the restaurant’s casual counterpart, Café Castagna, into wine bar OK Omens; there, Woodward let little flashes of his upbringing shine on the menu, like the Caesar, a play on the version served at El Torito in California with corn nuts and a cilantro dressing (Brooks called it “one of the city’s best salad inventions, period.”). While OK Omens ventured into casual territory, serving things like Tillamook cheddar beignets and a buzzy cheeseburger, the restaurant grew into a more sophisticated spot. Handmade pastas twirled with Dungeness crab came flecked with urfa pepper, crispy duck legs cured in six spice landed at tables with red wine–braised flageolet beans. But after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down both restaurants’ dining rooms, only OK Omens reopened. Woodward left that restaurant in late 2024. 

When it comes to modernist cuisine, Woodward was easily one of the most creative chefs in the Portland area, with a meticulous, almost cerebral approach to fine dining. But his interest in that side of food didn’t come from a place of pretension; he had a genuine passion for the art form. “I’m obsessed with this career,” he told Portland Monthly in 2013, when Brooks called him “the only Portland chef cooking Michelin-level food.” “I love cooking, cleaning vegetables, searing meat, making quenelles of ice cream, searing fish just right. I get shivers just thinking about it. Cutting chives, watching them pop off the blade is instant gratification—a reason to feel good. I’m in the kitchen 16 hours a day. I don’t take off my apron and become a different person. I give my entire life to this.”

Read the full obituary here.