When her father fell ill two years ago, Lara Jovanović had just turned 18 and was preparing for her university entrance exams. Instead, she found herself running Rosa’s Table, the 30-seat family restaurant in Westmoor her grandparents opened four decades ago. This week she cooked her way into the final eight of Home Kitchen Heroes, the reality cooking competition that has become one of the most watched shows on national television this fall.
In Sunday’s episode, the judges asked contestants to cook a dish “that tells your story”. Jovanović plated slow-braised lamb with roasted root vegetables and a sauce from her grandmother’s handwritten notebook, and earned the highest score of the night.
I did not cook anything fancy. I cooked what we serve on a Tuesday, the way my grandmother taught me. That is my story.
Lara Jovanović, contestant
Learning on the job
Taking over the restaurant meant learning far more than cooking. Jovanović had to manage suppliers, a staff of four who were all older than her, and accounts she says were “mostly kept in my father’s memory”. The first winter was hard: the restaurant lost money for three months, and she considered closing.
What saved it, she says, was going back to basics. She cut the menu from 40 dishes to 12, all made from scratch, and began buying vegetables directly from farms around Westmoor. Within a year, the restaurant was full most weekends.
Her father, now recovered, works the tables at lunch. “She is the boss,” he said, laughing, when the show’s crew visited the family. “I only carry plates.”
Why viewers love her
Producers say Jovanović is one of the contestants viewers write about most. Clips of her calmly rescuing a split sauce against a ticking clock have been shared widely online, and the restaurant’s phone has barely stopped ringing since the first episode aired.
“She has the confidence of a professional and the honesty of someone with nothing to prove,” said head judge Andrej Kostić, a chef with three decades in restaurant kitchens. “That is rare at any age.”
What is next
The remaining eight contestants face a team challenge next week, cooking for 200 guests at a harvest festival in the Valley Region. The winner of the series receives 50,000 euros and a six-month placement in a leading Riverton kitchen.
Jovanović has not decided what she would do with the prize. “Probably a new oven,” she said. “The old one has been with us longer than I have.”
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