Ashwin Vilkhu Maps His Own Way at The Kingsway

The New Orleans chef turned a master’s thesis into a career. His first solo restaurant retraces family dinners that started everything.

By Eric Barton | Aug. 7, 2026

AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.

Ashwin Vilkhu’s master’s thesis came with a fairly demanding conclusion: His parents ought to open a restaurant.

By then, his family had spent 26 years running a catering business and another six operating a once-a-week pop-up in a strip mall. Vilkhu’s 50-page thesis argued that Saffron should become a full-time restaurant. He laid out how to do it, down to financial projections, equipment, staffing, operations, and location. “It gave us a roadmap and the confidence to believe we could successfully transition from catering into a full-service restaurant,” he says.

Saffron opened on Magazine Street in New Orleans in 2017. It mashed together the family’s Indian heritage with Creole tradition, becoming one of this food-obsessed best restaurants and also simply one of its most creative.

Vilkhu has now followed that roadmap to The Kingsway, his first solo restaurant, which opened across the street from Saffron. His four-course menu pulls together the influences of his childhood table: his parents’ Indian heritage, his father’s Chinese cooking, his mother’s years in East Africa, and the Vietnamese and Chinese communities that helped feed New Orleans.

Ashwin Vilkhu

Vilkhu was 6 months old when his parents, Arvinder and Pardeep Vilkhu, immigrated from New Delhi to New Orleans in 1984. They settled on Kingsway Drive in Gretna, just across the Mississippi River, and regularly filled the house with friends and family.

Arvinder worked in hotels and had trained as a chef. Pardeep was a clinical psychologist and a formidable home cook. They handed their son different ways of understanding the stove.

“My father was classically trained and had incredible technical discipline,” Vilkhu says. “My mother, who grew up in New Delhi and spent part of her life in Eldoret, Kenya, cooked more instinctively.”

Friends began asking the Vilkhus to cook for parties. One of the first requests was a second birthday celebration for 200 people, an unusually large audience for a toddler and a useful test for a catering company. Saffron Caterers grew from there, with everyone in the family eventually taking on several jobs. “What stands out most is the elegance of it,” Vilkhu says. “It was sophisticated without ever feeling pretentious.”

Crawfish dumpling

As the catering company grew, Vilkhu began reading the work of Auguste Escoffier and Paul Bocuse. He studied timing, temperature, organization, and the other fundamentals that allow a kitchen to make dinner for a crowd without looking like it has just survived a small fire. “Perfect execution without emotion is forgettable,” he says. “The techniques should elevate the story behind the dish, not replace it.”

Cumin lamb

Green curry snapper

Vilkhu graduated from the University of New Orleans in 2006 and worked for several years in the beverage industry, including at Diageo. He returned to the university for a master’s degree in hospitality and tourism management, which turned into the 2015 business plan his family put into action.

Saffron’s menu passed Indian cooking through Louisiana, producing dishes like curried seafood gumbo, Gulf shrimp in korma sauce, and oysters roasted with curry leaf and caramelized onions. The James Beard Foundation named Saffron a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in 2018. In 2025, Ashwin and Arvinder were jointly named semifinalists for Best Chef: South. Inside Saffron’s kitchen, father and son served as co-executive chefs. “We both cared deeply, and that sometimes created friction,” Vilkhu says. “Over time, though, we learned to trust each other’s strengths.”

Crab, brie, and champagne soup

Nearly a decade at Saffron gave Vilkhu the confidence to build a restaurant around his own memories. The Kingsway takes its name from the family’s street in Gretna, and the photographs on its walls come from their collection. The food travels considerably farther.

A plate of noodles recalls the cold leftovers Vilkhu ate after his family ordered Chinese takeout. Salt-baked Gulf shrimp comes from memories of Kim Son, a Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant in Gretna where the Vilkhus ate for 25 years. Duck breast à l’orange combines French technique with the Asian flavors that circulated through their home. Trips through Asia, especially Singapore, gave Vilkhu a model for how those influences could share a menu without being sorted into tidy categories.

Chocolate tart

The Kingsway earned national attention before it opened, including a place on Bon Appétit’s list of anticipated new restaurants. Michelin included it in the inaugural American South guide.

“The Kingsway isn’t about moving away from my family—it’s actually a tribute to them,” Vilkhu says.

Years ago, Vilkhu wrote a thesis that showed his family where Saffron might take them. At The Kingsway, he has drawn another map, this one leading back to the house where they began.