Month: March 2021

ToKoss Take-Out opens in Manchester

When The Stuffed Sub closed last year, owner Chris Munzimi of Afro Paris, the beauty supply store next door, immediately took notice. He and other family members had been looking for a space to open a restaurant, and the newly vacant spot on Elm Street in Manchester was perfect.

ToKoss, a takeout-only eatery offering hard-to-find African and Caribbean dishes like oxtail stew, turkey tail, jerk chicken and cassava bread, in addition to house subs, burgers and wings, opened March 9. Munzimi, his younger brother Romeo Masuku, cousins Christian Mumpini and Junior Munzimi and family friend Jonathan Manono are all investors.

Masuku, whose family came to New Hampshire from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 2000s, said the restaurant’s name is derivative of the Lingala word “kitoko,” which means “something good” or “beautiful.” Its logo features an African safari tree.

“We wanted to bring some culture to the city of Manchester,” Masuku said. “We’re trying to incorporate dishes from the continent of Africa itself, and also dishes from the Caribbean islands and other Latin American countries. … Some of the recipes come from my mom directly.”

ToKoss features several options that are available all day, like chicken tender or house-marinated steak subs, cheeseburgers with a variety of add-on options, and salads. Traditional African or Caribbean meals become available starting at 3 p.m. — those include oxtail stew, curry chicken, jerk chicken, and pondu, or cassava leaves. Each comes with rice and one or two additional sides, like sweet plantains, fries, corn on the cob, and samoussas, or meat-filled pastries.

“The oxtail stew is something that everybody loves. That’s been the biggest seller,” Masuku said. “Oxtail is something made in Africa and the Caribbean islands as well. … The differences are in the spices used. We’ve identified house spices that we use here to try to incorporate everybody.”

You’ll also find a rotating menu of specialty items served on most weekends, like goat meat stew, catfish stew or smoked turkey tail, which can be ordered with any side. Other a la carte items have included wings, baby back ribs, fried shrimp, chicken or house-marinated steak kabobs, and beignets, also known in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as mikate.

“[Beignets] look like small doughnuts, but just fried. They’re very popular in Europe as well,” Masuku said. “You can eat them virtually with anything.”

Soft drinks like Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta are sold in glass bottles out of a refrigerated case.

“In Kinshasa, which is the capital city of where I was born, when you go out to restaurants you’ll usually see Coke products come in glass bottles,” Masuku said, “so we brought that in here just to have that little bit of nuance. … We’re going to try to add ginger beer also.”

In addition to takeout orders via phone, Masuku said ToKoss will soon be offering online ordering and delivery through a third-party service.

ToKoss Take-Out
Where: 1293 Elm St., Manchester
Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 3 to 9 p.m. (may be subject to change)
More info: Find them on Facebook and Instagram @tokosstakeout, email [email protected] or call 232-4399 to place a takeout order

Feautred photo: Oxtail stew over Caribbean rice with curry chicken and a beef samoussa. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

Milford’s Chris Viaud to appear on Top Chef

Milford chef Chris Viaud will appear as a contestant on Season 18 of Bravo’s cooking competition series Top Chef, which will premiere Thursday, April 1. He’ll compete in several challenges with 14 other executive chefs and restaurateurs from across the country, preparing dishes for celebrity judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons, as well as previous Top Chef finalists. Filming for the show took place in Portland, Oregon, late last year. As they say on the show, the winner receives $250,000, a feature in Food & Wine magazine, an appearance in the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado, and the title of “Top Chef.”

Viaud is the executive chef and owner of both the farm-to-table restaurant Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford, 213-5447, greenleafmilford.com) and the sandwich and pastry shop Culture (75 Mont Vernon St., Milford, 249-5011, culturenh.com). He grew up in Massachusetts and attended Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., where he studied food service management. Prior to opening Greenleaf and Culture, Viaud spent three years as a chef at Deuxave, a fine-dining French restaurant in Boston, where he honed many of the creative techniques and skills he still practices today.

How were you approached for the show and what was the casting process like?

One of the prior chefs at Deuxave, Adrienne Wright, was actually a contestant on Season 16 of Top Chef. She was the one who kind of inspired me and motivated me to toss my hat into the ring. She sent in my name and then somebody from casting reached out to me to begin the interviewing and auditioning process. There were many steps involved, and I had to think a lot about how to best express my talent to get to the point of being chosen for the show.

Had you been a previous Top Chef viewer? Were you familiar with the show’s format?

I’ve been watching the show since around Season 10 or 11. It’s definitely one of my favorite cooking shows to watch, because I often feel a deep connection to the chefs. This is all raw talent and their real struggles and self-battles that come through on the show.

Do you remember the moment you learned you had been selected to be a Top Chef contestant and what was going through your mind at that time?

Yes, actually. So just before Culture had opened [in August 2020], I was sitting in the empty building doing paperwork, and I got a call from an unknown number. Typically I don’t pick up unknown numbers, but I just had a feeling. … I was told that I had been selected to compete in the new season. I ran around the building and drove from Culture to Greenleaf. My wife Emilee was working the line at Greenleaf, and I took her aside and told her the news, and then I was just speechless after that.

You learned soon after that you’d be traveling to Portland, Oregon, for filming. Did you have to familiarize yourself with the food scene over there as part of your overall preparation?

I had not been there before, so it was also a bit of a surprise for me to learn that I would be going to Portland. I wasn’t too familiar with it, so I did have to do some research on the food community out there and what grows around that area. In New England, for example, we focus a lot on the four distinct seasons when we think about produce, but over there, there is a lot of produce that is grown year-round. So those kinds of things definitely took me outside of my comfort zone.

Did the experience make you realize anything you hadn’t noticed before as a viewer?

I’ve done cooking competitions before, but nothing quite like this at all. You get that realization that this is all really happening once the clock starts ticking. That 30 minutes you get is a real 30 minutes, and it flies. … All of us on the show became very well-connected, and being able to share our expertise with one another was one of the most rewarding things about the experience.

What was filming like in the midst of Covid?

There were multiple Covid tests before leaving but also throughout the course of filming. The production company took several extra measures to make sure the judges and the contestants were staying safe. We had to wear masks whenever we weren’t filming and we had to keep our distance from one another.

Top Chef: Season 18 premiere
The episode will air on Bravo and will feature Milford chef Chris Viaud
When: Thursday, April 1, 8 p.m.
How to tune in: Check your television service provider’s listings for the channel number, or stream the premiere online at bravotv.com/live

Feautred photo: Chris Viaud. Photo by Stephanie Diani/Bravo.