Unlike most restaurants, KOTO not only simply serves food to its clients, but also helps other people along the way. Living under its motto “Know One, Teach One,” it gives street kids and other disadvantaged children actual experience in restaurant work to take them out of the streets and give them sufficient technical skills and confidence to face the community.
 
The first KOTO restaurant opened in ${bigcity_Hanoi:"Hanoi"}. It’s a non-profit restaurant wherein everything that the establishment earns goes to the KOTO project of teaching less fortunate kids restaurant duties like cooking, serving drinks, waiting on tables, and other restaurant work. The youngster go through a 20-month training with the hope and aim of transforming them into “well-skilled, highly employable and well-rounded individuals.”
 
With the same ideal and mission, KOTO spread its charity work and opened another branch in ${bigcity_Ho_Chi_Minh_City:”Saigon”}. It is situated in a peaceful street off Hai Ba Trung in District 3. The place is beautifully and functionally designed with large terraces on the ground floor and upstairs, ideal for parties, meetings, and other gatherings yet at the same time, a serene place to spend a private and quality time in.
 
Aside from its charitable work, KOTO restaurant is not like any other restaurant at all in that its food is truly above the rest. It serves both international cuisine and local Vietnamese dishes. The KOTO mini-burger and stock quail are among its bestsellers. Other menu favorites include wok-tossed pipis (with ginger, spring onions, fish sauce and fresh lime), smoked fish (and confit of spring onion ravioli, coriander and tomato salsa, spiced cauliflower sauce and crispy herbs), and braised pork (with taro root puree, baby herbs, and crackling served on betel leaves). KOTO’s foods stand up from the other restaurants with their fresh herbs and unique, artistic creation of dishes.
 
The opening of a branch in Saigon is considered the completion of KOTO’s “social enterprise model.” One beneficiary of the program expressed her gratitude to the organization by saying how much the training and experience as a whole changed her life for the better. Acquiring new skills and gaining a social life built her confidence and happiness she never imagined she would have.

It is this kind of charitable and positive outlooks that make KOTO a truly one-of-a-kind and inspiring restaurant and mission as a whole.