Mira's Manny and Gina Ocasio Are Putting Buffalo on the Culinary Map

Some things feel like fate. Manny Ocasio was working at Zahav during a rare lunch service when Gina walked in looking for her friend. They barely spoke. Months later Gina walked into a bar and Manny was sitting there. Everything unfolded from that moment. And now they run one of Buffalo's most exciting new restaurants together, as partners in life and in business.

Manny and Gina Ocasio are the executive chefs and partners of Mira, a Mediterranean restaurant that opened in Buffalo's in November 2025, built around the simplest and most beautiful philosophy: the best quality ingredients, the simplest preparation, and food that makes you feel like you are sitting by sparkling Mediterranean water even when there are two feet of snow outside.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Manny and Gina to chat everything from Gina's Italian American New Jersey childhood where her mom made everything from scratch including baby food, to Manny's Buffalo upbringing where both parents worked in restaurants and he resisted the family path right up until the moment he started washing dishes at 15 and never looked back. From Gina's years at CIA and Del Posto and Sqirl in Los Angeles, to Manny's formative time at Manresa at 17 years old. From meeting at Zahav, to moving to Buffalo during COVID, to building Mira around a Josper grill from Spain, hand-made culurgiones, and a kitchen crew that has been there since day one.

This is a conversation about what it looks like when two people decide to do life together. Completely.

In this episode, we cover:

Gina growing up in a New Jersey Italian American household where her mom made everything from scratch including her baby foodManny growing up in Buffalo with a dad who was a chef and a mom who was a server, resisting the restaurant world right up until the moment he started washing dishes at 15Gina naturally gravitating toward pastry and baking from her mom's kitchenManny drawn to savory cooking for the same reason he struggled in school: learning with your hands, working through mistakes, being self-taughtManny obsessing over the Manresa cookbook and the Mind of a Chef episode featuring David Kinch, sending weekly emails to the restaurant until he got a responseLeaving Buffalo at 17 for a position at Manresa: the first time really traveling alone, figuring out logistics in Los Gatos, and the surreal experience of cooking in a kitchen he had only ever seen in videosGina's CIA experience in baking and pastry: the Apple