The Catbird Seat Announces Two New Chefs

When chef Ryan Poli and beverage director Matthew Poli depart the Catbird Seat at the end of the year, chefs Will Aghajanian and Liz Johnson will make the kitchen at the 22-seat restaurant their own.

The Poli brothers spent three years in the Catbird Seat space, but true to the restaurant’s ideology as a chef incubator, February 2019 is time for the next phase.

Aghajanian worked most recently at Per Se in New York. Johnson was at Freedman’s in Los Angeles, where she gained a Food & Wine Best New Chef win and a James Beard Foundation semifinalist nod for Rising Star Chef of the Year. Superstar chef Tom Colicchio even name-dropped her on Larry King Live.

The duo met while working as culinary interns at Noma in Copenhagan.

The Catbird Seat will close for the month of January and should reopen in February with a new vision from Aghajanian and Johnson.

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