Meet Kaspers, The Table’s younger, free-spirited sister

“I was telling Will that it’s there just to annoy him,” laughs Gauri Devidayal, co-founder of Bandra’s newest bistro and bar, Kaspers. The ‘it’ here is the single yellow tile in an otherwise flawless Gaudi-esque brown, red, blue, white and green trencadís terrazzo floor. And the Will in question is The Table’s Will Aghajanian, who is also Kaspers’s chef. 

On an early pre-opening friends-and-family night, wandering around Kaspers’s dining room, we feel unmistakably in Bandra, of course, and yet also pleasantly elsewhere—at a bistro in the Marais, at Balthazar in New York, a Gràcia side street in Barcelona, or in a Neukölln bar in Berlin. At various moments (and after one very chilled and perfect Filthy Martini with fancy olives), we also feel like Kaspers has always been around. The space looks lived in—well-appointed and lovingly maintained, but also timeless. Everywhere we look, devious, funny, cheeky, and angelic cherubs lurk: in frames, on the walls, on matchboxes, alongwith bread as moulded butter so generous it guarantees instant chubbiness, on coffee cups, and also Sistine Chapel-like, on the ceiling, painted in broad, fluid, freehanded brushstrokes. 

Kaspers has white tablecloths but none of the stuffiness that comes with them. Each swath is topped with drawing paper. On each table, amongst napkins swirled into tight white roses on forks, is a box of five crayons in the same colours as the tiles. Diners can—and should—write and draw and sketch and doodle on the tabletop, because it’s great fun. During our visit, we saw diners writing dad jokes and leaving love notes, NSFW scrawls, and crosses and noughts. One toddler on the table alongside ours was so prolific with his art, the server offers to provide a fresh sheet.

When I walk over to Devidayal to ask who the wildly creative architect and designer of Kaspers is, she looks half surprised that I haven’t figured it out, or as if she is still trying to convince herself. “It’s Will!” says Devidayal. Devidayal and her husband, Jay Yousuf, are founders of the Food Matters Group. Together they have built award-winning and beloved restaurant brands like The Table and Magazine St. Kitchen, among others. “Will has designed every bit of Kaspers, from choosing these exact colours on the floor, to the crayons on the table, to the art on the walls and the music on the playlist.”

Which is why that errant yellow tile may be maddening to Aghajanian. Kaspers is Mumbai’s, and possibly India’s, first restaurant to be designed entirely by its chef. Anyone who knows Aghajanian will also know that the room has been imagined and executed with exacting attention to detail. When craftsmen from Hyderabad laid the mosaic, a contractor’s mistake added a smattering of unapproved yellow chips. Much exasperation ensued. These rogue pieces had to be chiselled out and retiling done around them. They missed one. (Finding it is like playing Where’s Waldo?. We looked and looked and failed; eventually, a team member pointed it out to us.) 

Even the typeface for Kaspers is in Aghajanian’s loose, liquid handwriting. He spent three hours in the office one day writing ‘Kaspers’ over a thousand times on a tablet until he felt like it was just right. Kaspers is named after Kacper Abolik, the artist whose work is all over the room. Abolik is also an old friend of Aghajanian and had painted the horses in the chef’s former LA restaurant, Horses. At Kaspers, five signature colours from the tiles leak and spill all across the space—into the glowing semi-open kitchen by the bar, across the outdoor area, onto the staff uniforms.

“Those empty bottles are my personal one-week collection,” jokes Aghajanian, pointing to a narrow shelf lined with dozens of empty wine bottles. But these are so much more than just a cool decor decision. “The bottles are like ghosts, the memory of a party that somebody had here. Eventually I want people to sign them or draw on them. After a good night, you can say ‘that’s mine’.”

Some of these bottles were acquired from Food Matters’ other restaurants. And some of what the chef says is true. “Will had gone to Italy a couple of weeks before we opened, and he basically came back with empty bottles,” says Devidayal. “Which is just bizarre, right? People are trying to smuggle in extra wine, and here we are with someone who has consumed all the wine before coming and just wants the empty bottles.”

On that note, the Kaspers toilet makes for interesting selfies. Its brilliant Yves Klein-blue walls, angled pot, and velvet crimson draped entrance are striking. Like the outdoors, it has its own playlist. “The contractor had said the toilet was impossible,” says Aghajanian. “So, I made fake toilets out of cardboard, and fake sat on them and said, ‘It works, it works!’ It was a war of the toilets for a while. I love the flusher. I went down a toilet rabbit hole one night and found it. It’s such a beautiful toilet.” Indeed, the lever on the flush tank is a retro thing that makes you feel like you’re pulling a draft beer. Put the cover of the pot down, and you see a cheeky Abolik sketch, commissioned by Aghajanian.

In keeping with Kaspers’s ‘Western European neighbourhood bouchon/osteria/pinxto bar in a big city’ vibe, Aghajanian’s menu is the sort that allows punters to make their meal match their mood. Here are some possibilities: a Florentine omelette swirl topped with a tumble of fresh green peas alongside a negroni made slightly savoury with a touch of olive brine; a tangle of baby gem lettuce, cucumbers, and dill in a sprightly horseradish dressing paired with merguez frites; two-bite French onion soup crostinos, and taleggio and spring garlic arancinis between sips of IPA; a springy spaghetti arrabbiata ribboned with smooth milky stracciatella matched with a fancy chianti; a burger with a glass of cava; and rich roasted bone marrow with parsley salad and garlic croutons chased with bracing Fernet Branca. Couples, there are intimate round tables tucked away in the corners that are perfect for date night. Solo diners and pairs of friends can sit at the zinc-topped bar or the high chairs in the centre of the room between two columns pasted with Indian postcards and prints put together from Bandra-based collector Earl D’Souza’s eclectic collection. Bigger groups, take the gorgeous vermilion banquettes.

If you’ve eaten at The Table in the last couple of years, you know Aghajanian’s touch—food that is unfailingly satisfying even when he’s being mischievous with flavour pairings. (Of note here are the lemon pepper baby pomfret and the lamb brain vol au vents with green chilli, both fine examples of elegant chakna.) Much like The Table, dishes on Kaspers’s menu will come on and off the menu, with about 30 to 40 per cent of it changing every day. 

It must be said: the cocktail menu here is refreshingly normal and a relief to look at. No foam, no snacks teetering as garnishes, and thankfully, no cocktails that taste like main course. It has one short page of classics and their variations—a margarita with Lillet Blanc and Maldon salt, and a Vesper with fig leaf gin—all simply made, solidly well. They’re not trying too hard. There is no clarification, no fat washing, no cocktail novella, no ‘storytelling’—just drinks that reliably hit the spot.

Over the next few weeks and months, as Kaspers gradually becomes an all-day spot (for now it is only open for dinner), there will be pastries and a bread basket, both quite distinct from Food Matters’ other brands.

Aghajanian asks you to think of Kaspers as The Table’s younger, free-spirited sister. “Kasper’s food is a little French, a little Italian, a little Basque, nothing too fancy, nice ingredients, good olive oil, kinda healthy,” adds Aghajanian. “It’s comforting food. Everything we’ve made is easy to be shared. It’s not like you’ll get a fancy quenelle of ice cream where everyone gets one teaspoon. It’s where you would want to go get drunk at night and then come back again to deal with the hangover the next morning.” So naturally, he’s made a 21-hour, 292-song playlist called Kaspers All Day, meant to go from breakfast to 1 am. “It starts with very calm ambient music for a hangover… Then it becomes a little less calm and Bon Iver. Lunch is Neil Young-y, dinner is more ‘I wanna drink’ French disco. At midnight it becomes American pop rock. We want customers to go, ‘I remember this song, I’m kinda drunk. And I’m curious about what plays next.’” Aghajanian’s closing songs change from time to time. Right now it’s ‘I Remember Everything’ by Zach Bryan, or Eagle-Eye Cherry’s ‘Save Tonight’.

Across Kaspers are many such keenly tuned and perceptive luxuries by Aghajanian. “The glassware we got is kind of short,” he says. “I talk with my hands, and taller glasses stress me out.” The tables are slightly padded. “Most people won’t even notice it, but they’re just a little bit more comfortable.”

Two years ago, almost exactly to the day, Aghajanian came on board as the chef at The Table during a tough time for the restaurant. Weeks after he’d joined, he’d given Devidayal and Yousuf a 40-plus-page deck describing a dream bistro he wanted to build. We got a sneak peek at the deck and it’s all in there: postcards on columns, red leather, padded tables, that shade of blue. Nearly 800 days and many awards later, Aghajanian is culinary director at Food Matters, Kaspers is real, and it’s giving us feelings we’ve only ever had in beloved bistros elsewhere. “Someday,” he says after a beat. “I want someone to see a place somewhere else and say that it reminds them of Kaspers. Then, we succeed. Then we can rest.”

Address: Classic Corner, 7/8, St Andrews Road, Bandra West, Mumbai – 400050

Timings: 7 pm to 1 am, Tuesday to Sunday

Meal for two: Rs 7,500 (including drinks)

Reservations: +91 9769764887