Caterer is no flash in the pan
Portland chef Rob Leon provides locally grown, organic meals year-round
Christopher Onstott / Pamplin Media Group
Chef Rob Leon’s company, Phresh, is dedicated to providing full-service catering using all organic ingredients and, when possible, all locally grown produce and naturally raised meats.
Chef Rob Leon isn’t the first person to focus on a primarily organic catering business, but he is on track to becoming one of the most visible, if not one of the most successful.
He owns and manages Phresh catering, Portland’s only full-service catering business dedicated to offering exclusively organic and local, sustainable foods.
Leon, who lives in Southeast Portland, has run several of the city’s finest kitchens, including Atwater’s, Saucebox and Rivers. He started Phresh in 2004 while working at Rivers. He recently left to operate Phresh full time, and has catered events for the Portland French School, Hip Chicks Do Wine and Carlton Winemaker’s Studio.
The Portland Tribune talked to Leon about the joys and difficulties of maintaining a sustainable food business in Portland and the Willamette Valley.
Portland Tribune: What differentiates Phresh from other caterers?
Rob Leon: Every Phresh event features local, seasonal and certified organic products. I use organic dairy and dry goods when possible, and only use naturally raised meats. I augment my menu with farm-direct produce and purchases from local companies.
Tribune: What convinced you Portland was ready for an organic and sustainable foods caterer and helped you make the leap from restaurant kitchen to catering kitchen?
Leon: I got my big break cooking and hand-delivering Thanksgiving dinner to families two years ago, and continued cooking for my first client twice a week for a whole summer. I did a few office parties and then found some great people in the wine industry. I continue to cook at the Carlton Winemaker’s Studio – a green construction winemaker’s facility in Carlton – almost every Wednesday evening.
Tribune: What’s the hardest part of your job as a caterer dedicated to sustainable foods?
Leon: I would say the most difficult part is staying focused on these goals in the dead of winter when the growing season is a long gone.
Sustainability has much to do with taking care of our farms and our livestock in a respectable manner, and understanding the interrelationship of the plants, animals and natural forces on the farm. These types of relationships also occur in everyday life.
Sustainability also is about understanding the importance of our community and the ability to share in the process of supporting each other in our lives and our businesses. In restaurant kitchens and with catering, we all rely on each other to get the job done, and in my mind there is not one job or position that is more important than another.
Even as the chef and owner of Phresh, I see my success as a collaborative effort. I work with people; they don’t work for me. Phresh is just one link in the chain, so to speak. Appreciating and supporting the relationship between the food, the people who farm it, those that prepare and serve it, and those that enjoy it is part of what will help maintain a sustainable community as well.
Tribune: Do you foresee a day when you’re in the majority (as an organic, sustainable foods caterer) rather than a minority?
Leon: Absolutely. I don’t believe the ideas of organic and naturally raised products are at all a fad. If anything, these practices have been around longer than the chemicals and additives being used in modern farming and ranching today. If people demand organic, responsibly raised foods, the market and price structure will fall in line.
Find out more
Phresh Organic Catering,
503-313-0488,
www.thatsphresh.com