About Laura Sawicki and Mike Diaz
Laura Sawicki is the Culinary Director and pastry chef at Oseyo, the Korean-American restaurant in East Austin. She is a Culinary Institute of America graduate and one of Austin’s most recognized pastry chefs, known especially for her years at Launderette, where she built a reputation for desserts that balance nostalgia, savory influence, and technical precision. She joined Oseyo in 2023 and developed a pastry program that works with the restaurant’s Korean-American identity, incorporating fermented ingredients like doenjang, East Asian flavor profiles, and a playful, ingredient-driven sensibility.
Mike Diaz is the executive chef and a founding member of the Oseyo team, having led the kitchen since the restaurant opened in 2019. With over 20 years in the Austin food industry, he has worked at McGuire Moorman Hospitality, Olamaie, Bufalina Due, and Dai Due Taqueria. At Oseyo, his cooking bridges Mexican and Korean culinary traditions through a rotating program of specials that draw on his background and the restaurant’s Korean-American foundation. He is also a working stand-up comedian.
Episode Overview
André Natera sits down with Laura Sawicki and Mike Diaz to talk about what it looks like when a pastry chef and a savory chef build a creative partnership inside a restaurant that is itself bridging two culinary cultures. They talk about how the Oseyo menu has evolved since Laura joined, what the creative process looks like when you are developing dishes that have to honor multiple culinary traditions simultaneously, and why understanding the business side of a restaurant has become as important as the cooking.
They cover Austin’s dining scene and where it is headed, the discipline of consistency inside a kitchen that changes its specials regularly, the challenges of building a pastry program around fermented and savory Korean ingredients, and the ambition both chefs share around a future concept. It is a conversation about creativity, craft, and what it takes to keep a restaurant relevant in a city that is changing fast.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Laura Sawicki’s pastry work at Launderette and the identity she brought into the Oseyo pastry program
- Building a dessert program around Korean-American ingredients including doenjang and East Asian fermented flavors
- Mike Diaz’s 20-year Austin career and the culinary influences behind his Mexican-Korean specials at Oseyo
- The creative process behind developing dishes that bridge Korean and Mexican culinary traditions
- How Austin’s dining scene is evolving and what independent restaurants need to do to stay competitive
- Why business knowledge is now as essential as culinary skill for working chefs
- The challenge of maintaining consistency while running a kitchen built around creative evolution
- Advice for pastry chefs looking to build a distinctive identity in a savory-dominated industry
Guest
@sawickiwickiwicki
@cantinflado
@oseyoaustin
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