How Diego Oka’s Pandemic Pottery Hobby Evolved Into an Eight-Course Tasting Menu

During the coronavirus pandemic, Diego Oka, executive chef at Miami restaurant La Mar by Gastón Acurio, decided to learn how to make pottery. He bought a potter’s wheel and looked for YouTube tutorials, essentially teaching himself how to make plates, bowls and other dishes, drawing on his own Peruvian and Japanese heritage for inspiration. Oka quickly realized that instead of enlisting artisans to create crockery for La Mar, where he has worked since it opened a decade ago, he could design and create it to his exact specifications.