Founded by holistic health practitioners Sara and Nikki Siso, Conscious Kitchen is serving up raw, organic plant-based foods designed with the intention to support healthy diets.

The overview

The mother-daughter duo behind the business trace their menu’s inspiration back to Sara Siso’s cancer diagnosis twenty years ago.

Having noticed an improvement in her health through juicing and eating healthy meals post-diagnosis, she opened her own restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona called Chef Sara’s Raw Vegan Cafe and Academy in order to share her food with others.

“I wanted to spread the news [about] how plant-based [cooking] can really heal the body,” Sara Siso said.

Upon moving to Austin, her daughter, Nikki Siso, became interested in joining the family restaurant business, ultimately finding an available location in West Lake Hills and creating Conscious Kitchen.

“I was noticing that there's no raw living restaurants in Austin at all,” Nikki Siso said. “I was in transition between holistic health coaching and wanting to do something in the next chapter, and [Sara had] been looking to open a restaurant. ... Within a month I found this place.”

What’s on the menu?

The menu features ready-made meals like falafel, pizza and quiche as well as a variety of bread loaves, drinks, and sweets.

Ingredients utilized in Conscious Kitchen’s recipes are raw, gluten-free and incorporated by hand in the business’ kitchen.

“Our meals are literally plants, seeds, nuts, herbs, and spices. That's it. We don't use soy, we don't use gluten. We don't even really use grains. Our breads have sprouted organic oats, that's the only grain I would say we use,” Nikki Siso said.

Instead of cooking, the kitchen utilizes techniques like blending and dehydrating for their dishes, which is intended to preserve certain nutrients and enzymes, Nikki Siso said.

In terms of which dishes are most popular, the pizza and lasagna are ordered often, but a personal favorite for Nikki Siso is the falafel, which, instead of being deep-fried, is dehydrated and made with almonds rather than chickpeas.

What’s next?

Following the success of Conscious Kitchen’s opening in West Lake Hills, the business hopes to expand into education, offering classes on cooking and healthy meal preparation.

“Starting [the classes] next month is my goal,” Nikki Siso said in May.

The weekly classes will cover meal preparation techniques, beginning with instruction on producing almond milk, Nikki Siso said.