A former NFL football player turned chef is coming to Maryland to open his first restaurant, which will likely be positioned just a couple of minutes away from where he grew up.
The Huncho House will feature Prince George’s County’s first chef’s table, where diners can watch and get served by the chefs. (Courtesy Huncho House)
A former NFL football player turned chef is coming to Maryland to open his first restaurant, which will likely be positioned just a couple of minutes away from where he grew up.
Chef Tobias Dorzon will open Huncho House on Sept. 9 in Hyattsville, just minutes away from his hometown of Riverdale.
“You realize, it’s almost like once I was playing football as a toddler, you mostly need to play for your property team,” Dorzon said.
Dorzon played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tennessee Titans, and likewise within the Canadian Football League, before moving into the culinary world. The previous football player received national attention for his cooking while on Guy Fieri’s “Tournament of Champions.”
“He said I used to be a chef playing football,” Dorzon recalled Fieri saying about him on the show.
Dorzon said that was a real statement, as he has been cooking since a young age. His father was a chef and Dorzon hung out working in his father’s restaurant as a toddler.
“So you realize, the transition from football to cooking wasn’t really as hard as people make it seem because culinary was something I all the time loved,” Dorzon said.
Chef Tobias Dorzon. (Courtesy Huncho House)
After going to culinary school, including the Italian Culinary Institute in Sicily, he said his restaurant will mix what he learned there with flavors from his West African roots. Each his parents were born in Liberia.
The name, in keeping with Dorzon, comes from a reputation he was given by a general manager he worked with. The manager called him the “head honcho,” and Dorzon said he would later turn that into “Huncho House” in an indication at his home. Now, the name goes public.
The restaurant on America Boulevard will bring effective dining to Hyattsville and likewise offer Prince George’s County its first chef’s table, where diners can watch and get served by the chefs.
“I would like everybody to are available in and give you the option to the touch your palate in other ways that you just normally wouldn’t give you the option to,” Dorzon said.
Dorzon who now lives in Houston said he’ll now split his time between Hyattsville and Texas.
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