interview
The Orchestra
is to be conducted by me Ninety percent of your interviews are made mostly because of your clients. Don‘t you mind that media prioritize who comes to your restaurant beside your cuisine? “Most of the people who come to the restaurant come because of the meals and the atmosphere. They don‘t care who is sitting inside. There are journalists and magazines who focus on who is with whom in the restaurant. Anyway there are many others who write about the cuisine.” Was it possible to get famous in the 90‘s without well known people coming to your restaurant? “When you open a restaurant, you never think about inviting the prime minister. We have never invited anybody like that. When we have organised a party or campaign we have just invited guests who come to us regularly. If the person is a businessman, has a private office, director of a bank or is a tennis player, is not important to us.” The quality of the restaurants in Prague since 1992, when you started, has changed a lot... “Prague is hundred percent better. If we talk about good restaurants and the materials which are used. There are many restaurants with nice interiors, many bars, many new things. Prague is definitely moving ahead.” What sort of ingredients do you use in your restaurants? “Only the best ones. And we were doing that since the beginning. People kept saying to us that we are not normal if we import vegetables. More than ten years we have been importing besides vegetable
fish, meat and cheese. Ninety percent of materials used in our kitchen is imported. It is not only from Italy, but from Spain and France too.” Have you always known that Czechs want good-quality raw materials? Or it was a risk in the beginning? “Basis of our restaurant are domestic clientele including foreigners, who live in Prague. Since the first day we tried to focus on this and on importing good-quality raw materials and that‘s why they are interested. The Prague market is number one for us.” And do they like to pay more? “The one who wants to eat healthy and tasty food go to the restaurants where the cuisine is based on fish, and high-quality meat. There are people who don‘t have the budget to do that and that is the reason why they go to different restaurants. You know, it looks like we are little more expensive but the amount of our portions and mainly the quality of our food, if we talk about olive oil, vegetable, meat or fish.. that is the biggest difference.” What are the very basics for a good working restaurant? “Everything. From the service, raw materials, ambience, tablecloth, food preparation, chilled
The new restaurant in Quadrio Národni třída
IN COOPERATION WITH LEADERS MAGAZINE
wine... You have to take care about everything. Hardly anybody can imagine how much work we have to do. Every day I come at eight and I leave at twelve, until we close. I come as the first and I leave as the last.” How do you motivate yourself after so many years? “I personally enjoy it very much. I don‘t do any parallel business, I focus just on the restaurant.” You don‘t cook on television.. “I have already had some offers, but I refused. I asked how much time does it take. I would have to be there four days a week. It´s not worth it. I rather focus on what I do, and that I do it the best I can.” What kind of project are you preparing? “31st of October we will open a new restaurant in the project “Quadrio” on Národní třída. This restaurant will be similar to Kogo - hundred percent good food, besides that will have a different concept and prices. Národní třída is very frequented place. There will be more than one hundred and fifty places and a garden, so it will be huge.” Two years ago you opened a restaurant in Špindlerův Mlýn. Was it easier than in Prague? “In Špindlerův Mlýn Kogo is part of the Hotel Savoy and the restaurant had already been there in the past with different operator. At that time the restaurant didn‘t have a good reputation. Despite that we were able to help the restaurant in few months and we don‘t have any problems nowadays. Many clients go there. They know us from Prague and know the quality of the food and service they get here.” How do you plan to entice new customers? “We are quite known by the Prague clientele. We are going to entice guests by good service and
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