Chef Will Aghajanian's back in a new kitchen in Bandra, and here's all you need to know

Aghajanian hopes Kaspers becomes the place where Bandra residents return two or three times a week. ‘Like a Cheers bar,’ he says. ‘By the end of the night, everyone’s moving around tables. It’s fun.’

When Chef Will Aghajanian steps into the kitchen at Kaspers, Bandra's new neighbourhood bistro, the room will not suggest the storm attached to his name. But outside the kitchen, his past is hard to ignore.

In 2023, Grub Street journalist Ezra Marcus published an explosive investigation into Aghajanian's life, both inside and outside the kitchen. Former colleagues accused him of animal cruelty and described a culture of intimidation. The piece also referenced a restraining order by his then-wife, chef Liz Johnson, who accused him of domestic and emotional abuse, and killing their cat.

Aghajanian's professional life collapsed almost instantly. The Los Angeles restaurant Horses, where he and Johnson were once the golden couple, shut down.

His New York project, Froggy's, dissolved. And in the American food and beverage scene - sensitive to misconduct post-#MeToo - Aghajanian became, as one chef quoted in the story put it, "untouchable."

Will Aghajanian

So how did he end up here, shaping menus at Colaba's acclaimed The Table and now fronting Kaspers, one of Bandra's buzziest new openings?

For restaurateurs Gauri Devidayal and Jay Yousuf, the answer began in 2018, long before the controversy. "We first met him when he came to India for a month," Devidayal recalls. "He did a dinner at Magazine Street Kitchen, and we really loved his food and his cooking." They stayed in touch, and over the years, casual messages turned into an opportunity.

When The Table was looking for a new chef two years ago, Devidayal and Yousuf invited him back. "He had a concept he had been thinking about, and we had a location," Devidayal says. "We're enjoying the direction the menu has taken at The Table. So we were happy to do another concept on a similar cuisine orientation."

Yousuf, who describes their philosophy as strictly ingredient-driven, simple but high quality, adds, "The space dictated what we did. Kaspers is a small, cosy neighbourhood bistro. It felt right."

And what about the allegations? The restaurateurs are clear about one thing: they knew Aghajanian long before the reportage. "These media reports are just that… media reports," Devidayal says. "The matter is sub judice. He has filed a defamation case [against Johnson], and we prefer to let the judicial system run its course. If the outcome is not in his favour, then obviously that is something we would look into."

Aghajanian disputes the narrative. "Have you seen the movie Gone Girl?" he asks, referring to the fictional thriller about a woman who constructs a meticulous revenge campaign against her husband. "She [referring to Johnson] wanted the house, both businesses, and the dogs. You can curate how you are going to take things down," he says.

Gauri Devidayal and Jay Yousuf

He insists the allegations were constructed and that the US's defamation laws make it impossible to fight back. He frames the larger story as a hostile takeover of his career, but acknowledges his mistakes, and says he needs to hire more carefully.

If Los Angeles was the site of collapse, Mumbai is, for him, a reset. India is both a homecoming and a restart, he says. "My mom grew up in Delhi for a few years, so I always wanted to come to India." He eventually agreed to the move after a period of transition. "I just wanted to get back in the kitchen," he says. "It was like a restart. Go away from the Western world, find food, put my head down and cook."

He describes India's food scene as "up-and-coming" and generous: "Everybody's friendly… There aren't that many competitive people." Cooking here, he says, has sharpened him. "In America, vegetarian food is a salad or pasta. Here you really learn how to cook vegetarian food… You make it better."

He speaks animatedly about local seafood, like baby cuttlefish "the size of a finger," Sassoon Dock finds, and ingredients that would be impossible to get in America. India forces creativity, he says. "You have to do a little bit more work here. In the US, you can build a menu by ordering everything from the same supplier. It's too easy. Here you have to work harder. You get something incredible one day, and then it's gone. So you cook more creatively."

On the ground, Devidayal and Yousuf credit him with bringing fresh energy to The Table. Over a year and a half, they phased in a new menu with 80 to 85 per cent new dishes. For a 14-year-old restaurant with diehard favourites, this was a bold move.

What sealed their confidence wasn't just his talent; it was his willingness to adapt. "Every expat chef needs time to understand the palate here," Devidayal says. "You can't cook the same way you did in San Francisco or New York and expect it to work."

She admired that he learned quickly. "He was always very open to feedback. That's not a small thing," she says. "There's a six-month period where you have to be open-minded and understand what diners respond to, how far you can push, how big the vegetarian community is, how different ingredients behave here."

What surprised her most was how he handled Indian ingredients. "He highlighted things even we hadn't done justice to before. Something as simple as bheja - you never see it on fine-dining menus, but it's such a big part of Indian street food. Now it's on our menu, and people love it."

For the team, it felt like a rediscovery of The Table. "We began to have fun again," she says. "He challenged our diners all over again, in a good way."

The team, led by long-time collaborator Chef Louis Gomes, sees it as skill exchange, not hierarchy. "Our chefs recognise their strengths are operations and execution, and they learn from the creativity," Yousuf says.

"There is respect both ways."

Aghajanian hopes Kaspers becomes the place where Bandra residents return two or three times a week. "Like a Cheers bar," he says. "By the end of the night, everyone's moving around tables. It's fun. It feels like a dinner party every night."

The question is not whether his food is good; it is. But can a chef with such a past rebuild in a new country without public transparency? For now, Devidayal and Yousuf are standing by him. Diners are still discovering the new bistro. And Aghajanian continues to do what he insists he wants most: cook.

What's the case?

In 2023, Grub Street journalist Ezra Marcus published an explosive investigation into Aghajanian's life, both inside and outside the kitchen. Former colleagues accused him of animal cruelty and described a culture of intimidation. The piece also referenced a restraining order by his then-wife, chef Liz Johnson, who accused him of domestic and emotional abuse, and killing their cat.