Sweet Rewards
La Condesa's Laura Sawicki among Food & Wine's top five picks for the first everBest New Pastry Chef
Food & Wine magazine editors have released their first ever list of top five picks for Best New Pastry Chefs in America. Among the esteemed list of sweet-treat creators? None other than Austin’s very own Laura Sawicki of La Condesa.
Last week we asked Austin to get out the vote in support of up-and-coming pastry chefs in the first ever Food & Wine magazine People’s Best New Pastry Chef competition. Austin boasted three out of a total of 50 national chefs nominated for central region of the online national competition, which ended on the closing of the sweetest day of the year, Valentine’s day: Parkside’s Stephen Cak, Josh Matlock of Paggi House and Sawicki. (Food & Wine also released the winner of this people’s choice competition as Chris Ford of Baltimore’s Wit and Wisdom.)
But while the general social media sphere was swarming with encouragement to get Austinites to cast their vote for the three contending pastry chefs in the online competition, it turns out Food & Wine editors had already pinned Sawicki as one of their five finalists. (Other winners included: Shawn Gawle of Corton in New York City, Bryce Caron of Blackbird in Chicago, Stella Parks of Table 310 in Lexington, Kentucky and Devin McDavid Quince of Cotogna in San Francisco.)
Sawicki, a New York transplant, has been with La Condesa since the sexy Mexican restaurant opened its doors in 2009. Among her sweet concoctions that always include a bit of a savory component as well, she’s most known for her decadent El Rey dark chocolate tart with a thick caramel (dulce de leche) center and sprinkles of sea salt and her light and airy Pure Luck farms chevre cheesecake with rum-spiked pineapple, saffron custard and graham cracker streusel.
Our hats off to Sawicki for such a well-deserved national pat on the back. And if you haven’t yet treated yourself to one of her “postres,” we recommend you pay La Condesa a visit soon.