About Chef Laila Bazahm
Laila Bazahm is a Filipino-Brazilian chef and restaurateur who left a career at J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank at 28 to pursue cooking. She trained in some of the world’s most demanding kitchens — including a stage at Mugaritz under Andoni Luis Aduriz, and time at Michelin-starred Saint Pierre in Singapore and L’Atelier Joel Robuchon. She opened Hawker 45 in Barcelona, which landed on Conde Nast Traveler’s list of the 30 best restaurants in the city. After nearly a decade in Spain, she relocated to Texas and opened El Raval, a Spanish tapas concept in Austin, followed by Siti — a Southeast Asian restaurant named one of the best new restaurants in Austin by both Eater and Tribeza. She also appeared on Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay, winning her episode.
Episode Overview
Laila Bazahm made a move that most people in finance would never consider — she walked away from Wall Street to cook. What followed was a decade of training in elite Michelin-starred kitchens across Singapore and Spain, and eventually the discipline to open two restaurants of her own in Austin. In this episode, she breaks down what it actually takes to go from employee to owner: how to think about capital structure, why financial literacy is the single biggest gap most chefs have, what fine dining training builds that no business school teaches, and how she used her finance background as an advantage in an industry that typically ignores it.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
Why Finance Literacy Determines Who Survives — The gap between chefs who stay open and chefs who close often comes down to one thing: understanding money. Laila explains what she saw working in banking that most chefs never learn.
How to Think About Restaurant Capital — What funding sources actually look like for an independent restaurant, how to approach investors, and what terms to avoid when you are new to ownership.
What Elite Kitchens Actually Build in You — The standards, habits, and mental frameworks that come from Michelin-level training, and why that discipline translates directly to running a business.
The Career Pivot That Most People Fear — How Laila processed the decision to leave a high-earning finance career at 28, and what gave her the confidence to make a move that most people around her thought was a mistake.
Building Culture Across Two Concepts — How she approaches staffing, systems, and identity across El Raval and Siti, and what owning two very different restaurants at the same time has taught her about leadership.
Why the Industry Needs More Business-Minded Chefs — The specific knowledge gap that causes talented cooks to fail as owners, and how exposure to finance — even basic accounting — makes everything from hiring to marketing easier.
Connect With Chef Laila Bazahm
Instagram: @laila_bazahm
Siti: @sitiatx
El Raval: @elravalatx
Listen and Watch
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Audible
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