John Gorham, the chef and restaurateur behind a half-dozen popular Portland restaurants including Toro Bravo and Tasty N Sons, says he will undergo brain surgery to remove a lesion next month. A newly formed board will manage Gorham's Toro Bravo Inc. restaurant group while he recovers.

"I've got a little battle ahead of me, but I'm a tough guy, I'll get past it," Gorham says of his projected six-week recovery. "I've learned that over the past two weeks. At first I tried to bite, kick and scream and try to find out if there's any other way that's not brain surgery."

Gorham, who has a history of vertigo, visited the doctor last month after what he thought was a particularly bad spell. Doctors discovered what they believe is a mild glioma, or small tumor, Gorham says. They don't yet know if it's benign.

"They think they're going to get it all the way out, but we have to be prepared in case it's more aggressive that we think," Gorham says. "I've got an angel on my shoulder that we found it this early."

Gorham and his team were in the middle of opening a handful of new restaurants when he received the diagnosis. Those include a wine country location of his Tasty breakfast chain slated to open this spring in McMinnville, and a second outpost of Israeli joint Shalom Y'all expected to open as planned in the former Taylor Railworks space at the end of January.

Gorham asked to postpone his surgery until January so he could take part in a long-planned dim sum-style tapas dinner at Plaza Del Toro with friend Juanjo Canals of Madrid's Con Amor and Despecho restaurants, who is flying in from Spain for the event. During his recovery, a 10-person board made up of several longtime employees, business partner Ron Avni and Gorham's wife, Renee, will take over day-to-day operations, he says.

"It's been a roller coaster of a ride," Gorham says. "I've accepted it and I'm at peace with it and I'm ready to do what I've got to do."

-- Michael Russell