Katalina Diaz

Born in the Bronx and trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Café Boulud’s Executive Pastry Chef Katalina Diaz excels in traditional French technique and building layers of flavor and texture into her desserts. Yet she remains connected to her roots by way of her favorite ingredient – chocolate, especially when made with beans from her family’s native Ecuador.

You’ll find Katalina’s beloved chocolate on the Café Boulud menu in classic desserts, comforting for their familiarity, yet always re-visited in form and flavor. For her chocolate mille feuille, Katalina turns cocoa dusted puff pastry on its side and deeply caramelizes it for a satisfying crunch. She completes the delicate layers with an Arriba chocolate cremeux. While an unexpected flourish comes from sage scented chantilly, suggested by Chef Daniel, a much welcome collaboration Katalina cherishes. The note of surprise in her molten chocolate cake comes from Katalina’s mint-lemongrass ice cream, an innovative combination, at once refreshing and delicate.

Katalina began practicing her craft well before attending the Culinary Institute. Raised on Long Island at Huntington Station, she took her first after school job in a grocery store bakery packaging freshly made sugar cookies and decorating cakes with colorful buttercream icings. At home in a family of six children where each was assigned household tasks, Katalina helped in the kitchen where her mother taught her to make pan con yucca and cinnamon dusted merengues.

The pastry chef’s first formal training was by way of her high school’s Skills USA technical trade studies program. While she preferred her job at the bakery, the daily culinary classes set Katalina on a professional path and enabled her to take part in culinary competitions from an early age. At the time, a field trip to the Culinary Institute of American provided an introduction to Daniel Boulud, addressing students at the school that day. Little did she know that his restaurant kitchens would become her real training grounds just a few years later.

Katalina credits her mentor, former DANIEL Executive Pastry Chef Ghaya Oliveira, with teaching her to understand complex pastry recipes instinctively and to coax flavor from fruit, herbs and spices, rather than relying on sugar alone. Ghaya would also serve as a role model for a successful woman in the kitchen, constantly teaching, uplifting and supporting her team. Katalina joined the pastry department at DANIEL in 2017, immediately upon graduating from the Culinary Institute. She learned the highest standards from the start, making sauces and batters fresh daily to assure the freshest texture and flavor in every component of every dessert. Her next mentor, DANIEL Executive Pastry Chef Shaun Velez, promoted her to Executive Pastry Sous Chef in 2019. She had begun to create recipes of her own and would now also rise to the challenge of managing complex production schedules covering dessert menus for Michelin starred fine dining as well as catering and events. Today as Executive Pastry Chef at Café Boulud, Katalina personifies the value of training, nurturing and promoting talent from within.

While Katalina’s desserts are beautifully presented, she remains focused on flavor such as the refreshing contrasts in this season’s Kaffir Pressed Pineapple, Thai Basil Granité, Red Bean Jelly and Condensed Milk Foam. It’s a delicious interpretation of tropical fruit at its peak in winter. Stay tuned to see what Katalina will be serving as Café Boulud’s menus evolve over the spring, summer and fall seasons.