After moving to Montreal last year, Evy Mendes, a food quality control manager, realized that its vegan restaurant scene was woefully lacking in West African flavours. “I was talking to some of my Black vegan friends about it, and one of them told me they’d decided not to be vegan anymore because it was so hard to find the food they grew up with, but made in a vegan way, here in Montreal,” she says.
Mendes started Cantine Toca Toca, an online catering operation serving vegan West African fare for that friend five months ago, before opening up orders to those living in her neighbourhood, NDG. She now offers delivery to a large swath of the island. “That’s how the rollercoaster started,” she says.