Chef and restauranteur John Gorham fell in love with Oregon after spending time with friends in Eugene back in 1993. He put roots down in Portland and owned several restaurants there, including the acclaimed Toro Bravo, before relocating to Central Oregon in 2020. The six-time James Beard Award-nominated chef has also had a love affair with Spain for the past few decades and frequently returns there as a guest chef. Both Spain and his southeastern U.S. homeland are big culinary influences for Gorham, who says he loves the way both places eat, passing plates and sharing food family-style. 

The other big inspiration in Gorham’s life was his grandfather, a lover of fine dining who owned a crab shack in Baltimore. When Gorham was a kid, he spent summers hanging out in the crab shack kitchen and dining at some of the best restaurants in the D.C. area with his grandpa. By age 7, young John declared he wanted to be a chef. His young cheffing days included stints for the Grand Teton Lodge Company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and time studying in the Bay Area.

 In current times, Gorham and his wife and business partner Renee Gorham are the force behind two of Bend’s most notable establishments—the modern steakhouse Rancher Butcher Chef (RBC) in Northwest Crossing and the lively tapas, wine and cocktail lounge, Bar RBC in downtown Bend. The Gorhams are committed to a culture of giving people a chance to rise up, offering stability, opportunity, education and respect to their teams, including the young chefs who now run Gorham’s day-to-day kitchen operations, Matthew Gorham and Stiv Reisdorph. 

You agreed to be interviewed only if Matthew and Stiv were included in the interview. Why was that? 

John Gorham: I never want to take credit for it all.  I can’t do it without Matthew and Stiv. I’ve been doing it for a long time, and now, these are the young chefs to watch. I see myself more as a restauranteur now. I’m not in the kitchen every day like I used to be. I still write the menus and give these guys guidance, but these are the guys that we should be keeping our eyes on.

Matthew is your nephew, but you didn’t hire him right away. Why was that?

John Gorham: When Matthew called me up when he was 18 and said that he wanted to cook, I first asked him what he knew about the regional food where he grew up. Then, I advised him where to go work and learn. Over the years, I trained him from the outside until I felt like he was ready to come work with me, first as a sous chef, and now he’s chef de cuisine at RBC.  

You left your burgeoning catering career to open Bar RBC for the Gorhams. That says a lot about their program.

Stiv Reisdorph: I love the sense of community we have here. With two different restaurants, we have 20 to 25 cooks, and we see each other and interact, and I like that camaraderie. 

Matthew, what inspired you, besides your uncle, to take the food path?

Matthew Gorham: I was going to college, and I realized right away that I couldn’t continue to sit down at a desk. The first job I got was dishwashing at this diner in North Carolina, and the guys would give me prep projects like cutting two five-gallon buckets of potatoes or onions. And I remember doing that for the first time and realizing how rewarding it was that folks would eat them later that night. 

What is most important to you in this business of food and hospitality?

John Gorham: Creating a culture of care and education. We want to give people a chance to rise up. We want to support younger chefs and give them the opportunity to become business owners themselves. One of the beautiful things that happened post-COVID was a reckoning regarding wages. We made a statement when we opened RBC that everyone who works for us here will be working for a living wage for where they’re at. We even pay our dishwashers what we pay our line cooks. We are committed to providing stability and opportunity.  Every day, we do an education piece for the front of the house. It’s thirty minutes daily at 4 p.m. on food, wine or service; everyone is invited to have a voice and contribute. We want to hear those ideas, and if someone has a better idea of how to do something, we want to hear it.  We honor everyone in our kitchens. We salute them all. 

Rancher Butcher Chef is a modern steakhouse in Bend’s Northwest Crossing neighborhood that serves a variety of butcher cuts and house dry-aged beef. Small plates, salads and sides are served family style alongside the steaks and seafood mains. 
2838 NW Crossing Dr., Suite 120 | (541) 797-7900 | Rbcbend.com | Open daily 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Bar RBC is a tapas, wine and cocktail bar on Minnesota in downtown Bend. Spanish wines, sherries and elegantly handcrafted cocktails complement a variety of small plates and posters (desserts). 
147 Minnesota Ave. | (541) 323-0757 | Open Sunday through Thursday, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.