Starting with a Love for Delicious Homemade Dishes

DoKao is a combination of the last names of the two co-founders. Mr. Tony’s surname is Đỗ, and Mrs. Hanna’s surname is Cao. Since in Czech, the letter “C” is not pronounced like “K,” we changed the “C” to “K” to avoid mispronunciation and to give the restaurant a name that arouses curiosity among customers.

Since 2015, we have been taking steps to open a restaurant with homemade flavors “as good as home-cooked.” At that time, our founder Tony, a young man full of enthusiasm and with the ambition to become an outstanding employee in the marketing industry, often brought diverse and nutritious meals prepared by the future restaurant owner, Hanna, to work.

At the beginning, Tony brought homemade lunch boxes to work, and because the food looked unique and attractive with a special taste, such as “thịt kho tàu,” “gà xiên nướng satay sốt lạc,” “sườn chua ngọt,” and many other dishes, which were only available in high-end restaurants like “MODRY ZUB” at that time, they quickly became popular among Tony’s coworkers.

Later, Tony’s colleagues established a Facebook group called “Tony’s Fastfood” to comment on and provide feedback on the dishes, as well as to suggest what they wanted to eat in the coming days. The average price for a meal in a restaurant was 150 CZK per serving back then, but Tony sold their dishes for 130 CZK for a small portion and 170 CZK for an XL portion for those who wanted more food.

Every day, Tony would bring 15 lunch boxes to work for his friends and colleagues, and gradually, other customers also wanted to buy and try Hanna’s culinary skills.

Tony then decided to quit his job at ALZA to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant with quality and unique homemade dishes to serve more customers. In December 2018, DoKao was established at a location in the center of Mladá Boleslav.

In the initial phase, we focused on typical and familiar dishes from Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan. Vietnamese dishes included Phở, Bún Nem, Bún Nam Bộ, Bún Chả, Phở Trộn. From Thai cuisine, it was Tom Yum soup, Tom Kha soup, main dishes like Kari and Pad Thai. From Japanese cuisine, we mainly focused on sushi, offering both fresh sashimi and fried sushi (for customers who don’t eat raw fish) served with three sauces that we invented, making them signature sauces of DoKao.

Overcoming Difficulties with Passion and Determination

Our restaurant was located in an old building built in the 1950s. To enter the restaurant, customers have to pass through an unattractive iron door and climb the stairs to the first floor.

One of the biggest challenges for DoKao was how to attract customers to overcome the uncomfortable feeling of entering an old and unattractive building. Once customers overcame this feeling, they found a completely different world inside. Fortunately, we achieved this within just three months of opening the restaurant.

Our second challenge was named COVID, which came unexpectedly. During this period, our restaurant operated only through a small window for take-out, as the government had banned gatherings to prevent the spread of the disease. Thanks to the relentless efforts of the entire DoKao team, we once again secured our place in the hearts of our customers. COVID disrupted the entire world, but it also helped DoKao gain more recognition as customers ordered take-out. Thanks to the love from our customers, we overcame this difficult period.

After five years of successful operation and building a good reputation, DoKao decided to move to a more modern location on Francouzská Street in Prague. Here, to provide a better experience for customers, we decided to create a unique Japanese-Korean style restaurant with characteristic dishes from these two countries.

To prepare delicious, authentic dishes, we had to overcome many failures and continue to innovate. These failures brought valuable experiences aimed at creating the nearly perfect menu we have today, which we believe will provide you with a memorable and special experience.

With the care and dedication of our staff, along with quality, nutritious dishes, we strive to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.