Jovo Savić
Executive chef, owner & founder
Behind KOGO stands one person and one obsession — to do things properly.
Jovo Savić has been cooking for more than 47 years, and KOGO Slovanský dům reflects his personality, his experience and his distinctive culinary signature. As founder and Executive Chef, he gave the restaurant his own vision of Mediterranean cuisine with an Italian accent — built on fresh fish, seafood and a careful approach to every ingredient. His style shows in every detail and gives the KOGO kitchen its unmistakable character.
His approach is simple and uncompromising at once — the best ingredient, minimal intervention, maximum flavour. Forbes featured an interview about his journey this year, and the restaurant, now celebrating 25 years, has earned two Golden Lions and the Best Restaurant 2026 title.
“It is not about impressing. It is about the guest thinking: this was exactly it.”
Jovo Savić · Executive chef, owner & founder
The story of Jovo Savić
From Sarajevo to KOGO in Prague
Fifty years in gastronomy. Three restaurants in Sarajevo, a new beginning in Prague and a brand that became an icon of the Prague dining scene. Behind KOGO is the story of Jovo Savić — a path shaped by enterprise, the courage to start again, perseverance and a lifelong passion for gastronomy.
His journey began in Sarajevo, where he worked as a waiter while studying at hotel school. Gastronomy soon took hold of him, and his first experiences gradually grew into a business of his own. By the early 1990s he was running three restaurants and preparing to open another. He started a family, built a house and his son was born. At thirty-three he had a successful business behind him and big plans ahead. For his fourth restaurant he had already leased the premises and ordered the equipment from Italy.
The war in Yugoslavia changed his plans completely. He left Sarajevo with his family for Greece, where he had the chance to play football professionally. A leg injury cut his sporting career short. Jovo found himself at a crossroads once again and had to find a new direction. In the end the road led him to Prague, where he had many friends and a chance to start over.
In May 1995, together with a business partner, he opened the first KOGO restaurant in Prague, on Havelská Street. It was not an entirely new name. Jovo brought it with him from Sarajevo, where he had run his bistro under it. KOGO is an old seafaring word for a ship's cook. A name with a story of its own had crossed borders and survived a life-changing turn.
In time the partners went their separate ways and Jovo decided to carry on alone. On 24 April 2001 he opened KOGO in Slovanský dům. This is where the next chapter began — one in which he could fully develop his own vision of gastronomy and give the restaurant the form it has to this day.
25 years of KOGO in Slovanský dům
Over a quarter of a century KOGO has become a fixture of the Prague dining scene. Its kitchen rests on Italian foundations and draws inspiration from the whole Mediterranean. From fresh fish and seafood to premium steaks, pasta, risotto and pizza from the Italian oven — everything is united by quality ingredients, precise service and an atmosphere that keeps guests coming back.
The numbers tell the scale of this history best. In that time KOGO has welcomed 2,448,948 guests. Its kitchen has handled 569 tonnes of seafood and 390 tonnes of fish, prepared 157.5 tonnes of octopus and served more than 626,000 portions of pasta, 276,000 portions of risotto, 182,000 pizzas and almost 477,000 meat and steak dishes. On top of that, guests have drunk more than 1.67 million cups of coffee.
Behind these numbers lies a quarter of a century of daily work, thousands of encounters and countless reasons why guests return. For Jovo Savić, KOGO is much more than a restaurant. It is the result of a lifetime of work and passion for gastronomy, through which he built a place that has become part of the stories of many Praguers and visitors to the city.
Awards & recognition
- 01 Best restaurant 2026 — TopLife Czech
- 02 Gault&Millau 2026 — two toques
- 03 Two Golden Lions
- 04 A quarter century in Slovanský dům