Oseyo: A Korean restaurant on East Cesar Chavez built around one word, welcome
RestaurantAustin, TexasPublished Updated
Oseyo is a Korean restaurant on East Cesar Chavez in Austin, designed by Mark Cravotta. The menu runs from traditional Korean American favorites to dishes inspired by the owner’s mother’s recipes. The name means come in, or welcome, and it became the design brief.
The brief
The owner had wanted to open a Korean restaurant since she was fourteen. When it came time to build it, she and Cravotta gathered visual references separately and found they had pulled many of the same images. Before long they were, as he put it, literally on the same page. Every decision served one feeling: that guests arrive somewhere made for them.
Scope
Full restaurant interior: lighting, ceiling treatment, furnishings and finishes.
The design
The chandelier was built by Cravotta’s own hands, assembled from South Pacific fishing baskets after a long search for the right form. The ceiling scrims were found at a Tokyo flea market on the last day of a three-week trip.
Both pieces carry the logic of the whole restaurant: the right thing, found through patience, made with care. The room itself is a form of hospitality.
Rue included Oseyo in its April 2021 Editor’s Picks.
- Materials and makers
- Chandelier made by Mark Cravotta.
- Press
- Rue, April 2021, Editor’s Picks.