The man behind the year’s most acclaimed restaurant talks fire, fish and vegetables ploughed by horses. Plus, six exclusive recipes
Tomos Parry often seems a tiny bit bemused. Bemused, for example, by the delirious, unimprovable reviews his restaurant Brat has received since opening in a converted pole-dancing bar in Shoreditch, east London, in March. By the fact that people (like me) now expect him to have an overarching philosophy of food and dining. And, perhaps understandably, that he is presently standing in a field in Cambridgeshire, wearing a jacket on a hot afternoon, waiting for a pair of big-bummed, heavy horses, attached to ancient Amish farm equipment, to lumber into position for a photograph.
“The thing is, I don’t really understand how to grow anything,” admits the 32-year-old Parry, originally from Anglesey, looking out over neat rows of leeks, salad leaves and edible flowers. “I don’t really want to be somebody who does everything themselves. I like working with other people: having someone who does charcuterie, someone who does the wine … I don’t understand this chef thing, which is a quite recent phenomenon: ‘Oh yes, we do everything in-house.’ It’s borderline arrogance to think you can make everything yourself anyway.”
I don’t understand this chef thing, which is a quite recent phenomenon: ‘Oh yes, we do everything in-house.’
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