Tomos Parry has high hopes with his new Soho restaurant
Tomos Parry has high hopes that his slow-cooked lobster will bring people to the table as much as his fabled turbot. He talks to Caroline Baldwin about new opening Mountain
A dish of braised lobster stew is likely to epitomise Tomos Parry's new Soho restaurant Mountain, which opens its doors this week. The traditional ‘caldereta', coming from the Spanish caldera, meaning cauldron, will see Parry braise pieces of lobster for "about 20 minutes longer than you would normally cook lobster" before serving in a Balearic terracotta lidded pot to serve three to four people.
"It tastes luxurious, but for me it's the best way to eat lobster. It stretches it out for the family so everyone can take the bit they like," says the chef, whose debut Basque country-inspired restaurant Brat earned him rave reviews and an ardent following in 2018.
His draft menu for Mountain has notes scribbled in the margins next to dishes that could have come straight from a taverna in the mountains of Mallorca, such as Parry's take on the Spanish ‘callos' stew of braised tripe.
"Everywhere in Spain has its own version of this, but I like the Madrid style. I dice the ham and cook it for a really long time, so it's layered like a ragu," he explains. "What I love is that it is essentially a peasant dish, but cooked with the same kind of love you'd give premium beef – it's that juxtaposition with the offal.
"I've eaten a lot of callos over the past few years – some good, some not so good – but I think I've got this right. There's a depth to it and it's just so delicious and moreish, and we'll serve it with beautiful wine and bread," says Parry, who followed Brat in Shoreditch with Brat X Climpson's Arch in June 2020.
As we speak the chef is in Albert Adria's Cake & Bubbles at the Hotel Café Royal after a tour of Mountain, which sits just around the corner on Beak Street. Parry catches sight of a Basque burnt cheesecake, named The New York Times' flavour of the year in 2021, on the counter.
"We cut our Basque cheesecake with goats' cheese," Parry tells me as he takes a bite in the name of research. Talking of research, he is heading to Mallorca next week to meet with suppliers and choose ceramics for the new restaurant, including the caldereta pots which must be made from a specific clay for the lobster to cook correctly.
His parents, who still live in his birthplace of Anglesey in North Wales, laugh that he's jetting off on another holiday, despite his insistence that he will be "figuring out the fluffiness" of Mallorca's famous ensaïmada pastry to see if he can shrink it down to work as a dessert on Mountain's menu.
From Brat to Basque
Parry's first restaurant, in east London, takes its name from the old English name for turbot, and the fish has become synonymous with the venue, where it is cooked over open flames. Prior to Brat Parry developed his skills at Kitty Fisher's. "No one was doing it at the time," he says, explaining how the use of retired dairy cows and unusual cuts of meat caught the attention of the food world.
"It was a perfect storm of an old-school site, a young chef with east London ideas and it was a huge success… but it wasn't my restaurant."
Parry left Kitty Fisher's and, a year later, opened Brat with fellow chef Ben Chapman and business partner Brian Hannon, former director of food and restaurants at Selfridges. Brat now sits above Chapman and Hannon's Thai restaurant Smoking Goat, and the pair also own Kiln in Soho, all of which are part of the Super 8 restaurant group, with Parry the co-owner of Brat, Brat X Climpson's Arch and Mountain. "Brat was this hidden little site upstairs and we were a bit nervous about the location as Shoreditch was on the cusp of becoming the busy area it now is – it's changed a lot in the past six years," he says.
Parry needn't have worried, as the reviews of his cooking of Welsh and Cornish produce using Basque methods over flame flooded in, specifically for the turbot, which is cooked whole over the embers of the fire for nearly an hour, the method allowing the "skin to develop and the bone flavour to come out into the flesh and it kind of breaks down" he says. And to quote Giles Coren's 2018 review in The Times: "Never have I seen the edges so crisp (making the bones edible) with the flesh so firm and yet the gelatinous parts so sweet and sticky on one animal".
Despite meteoric praise and a swift Michelin star, Parry is not at all egotistical. In fact, he looks surprised and quickly shrugs off the suggestion that many chefs tell The Caterer Brat is their favourite restaurant or that Parry would be a part of their fantasy brigade.
"I suppose I should blow my own trumpet – we were doing different things on the grill," he says begrudgingly, noting how other restaurants up and down the UK are now experimenting more with fire cooking. "There was a sense of it being exciting to eat whole foods and fish simply grilled. It was rare. And I guess it might have given others the confidence that diners want to eat a whole fish."
Lobster on the menu at Mountain
While turbot was what made his name at Brat, it is likely that lobster will be Mountain's calling card. "Cities have a different interpretation of lobster, but for me it's always been what the locals eat, because it's what they catch and that chimes with the Balearic caldereta dish," he says.
"Lobster is a huge part of the Welsh economy – it should be the symbol of Anglesey, as it's such a big deal for a little island, all the way down the Llyn Peninsula and to the west coast," he adds. He will also tap into his longstanding relationships with Cornish fishermen to use lobsters from the south west, depending on the season.
"We've been having conversations with fishermen who haven't been able to sell their lobsters since Brexit due to a paperwork nightmare, but the logistics of bringing lobsters to London works for them, so we can use them."
The Spanish and Welsh marriage of flavours he established at Brat will continue at Mountain, which is influenced by Northern Spanish towns and the Balearic islands where, similar to Anglesey, the sea is close to the mountains, with similarities also seen in the terroir and rural farming communities.
"I feel very at home there. What I like about those little towns in the mountains is that you can walk around and eat in the fisherman bars and then you can find the tavernas and have dishes from the fire, which is a rural way of cooking," he says, describing the Spanish mar y montaña (sea and hillside) cooking style.
Mountain's menu will centre around the wood grill and begin with quick dishes offering a "sense of immediacy". Guests can enjoy a few glasses of the house vermouth on tap, which is produced in Sicily by the same supplier as the restaurant's olive oil, alongside a plate of raw, cured Balearic sausage, sobrassada, which Parry is sourcing from Mallorca (see panel) and fresh bread from British stone-milled grains made in Mountain's bakery by Suzi Mahon and Pamela Yung.
Those looking for something a little more substantial can move through the menu to dishes such as pink bream served hole, split and roasted on the plancha; a plate of wood-grilled lamb chops; and his taverna-style braised dishes, which is what he hopes will make Mountain stand out from its East London sibling.
"These dishes will take a bit longer to cook, as the idea is they've sat on the stove for a while and created a depth of flavour," he says, pointing again to the lobster caldereta, cooked until the meat starts to come away from the shell and speckles the stock, which is loaded with flavour from velvet crabs, an underused species.
"Come the winter we might braise game or a slow-cook oxtail with orange peel and raisins," he says. "When I was at River Café we did an osso buco dish and I remember thinking that it wasn't what I associated with fine dining back in the day, but it was slow cooked with so much care."
Today he hat-tips his business partners for exposing him to new ideas. "I've learned so much by osmosis working with two of the best Thai restaurants around [Kiln and Smoking Goat]. Their approach to bringing in flavour is so different – even the seasoning is different." He describes how Thai mud fish are not particularly nice to eat, but after smoking, drying and pounding in a pestle, they become a seasoning and curry base for most Thai curries.
"It gives it body, like using anchovy," he adds. "So I'm using a similar technique for the caldereta, where I'll take an underused fish like coley, salt it and smoke it over the fire for a very long time until it becomes completely dry, and it becomes the perfect base and can be used to enrich the dish at the end. That's what is so good about living in London, having restaurants like Smoking Goat and Kiln really pushing the conversations and techniques."
Parry is all too keen for Mountain, which seats 60 upstairs with a further 40 covers in the downstairs bar, to become a "restaurant that adds to the tapestry of the London food scene".
"I want people to like Mountain, obviously, but I also want to create something to add an experience to London, and not just for guests, but for chefs and suppliers too," he says. "I want to create dishes that bring people together – like the beef at Kitty Fisher's, the turbot at Brat and the lobster here.
"Some of my favourite dishes have always been the ones that everyone gets excited about being around the table,and I'm hoping that will be the caldereta," he says, glancing back at his draft menu on the table. "But maybe the tripe will have its moment as well."
Pushing for progression with people
"What drew me to being a restaurateur was developing the team," says Parry who now has 50 staff at Brat with a further 40 at Brat X Climpson's Arch and 60 startingat Mountain. Many of those launching Mountain have been with Parry for years, including head chef Josean Balotin, who joined Brat in the first week as chef de partie and went on to head up Brat X Climpson's Arch and now Mountain. Meanwhile, head of creative and brand Carmen Mac has been working alongside Parry for the past year, helping to develop the Brat and now Mountain brands.
"Part of the progression plan was telling them I was opening a new restaurant in two or three years. It gives people things to aim for and progression is so important."
He makes sure his team are visiting suppliers nearly as often as he does, with some in west Wales sourcing seaweed and others heading to Italy or France for wine harvesting – "it's hands-on and incredibly hard work – I think they go thinking it'll be a boozy trip!".
He describes how these visits help the team learn the process and be in touch with the production methods. "I'm keen on our chefs having a broader idea and being part of the food ecosystem. And it helps with recruitment as well."
From Mallorca to Cornwall: the key suppliers to Mountain
"I generally want to source within the UK, but when I met Lluis in Mallorca and tasted his sobrassada, it blew my mind," Parry says.
Parry was initially going to make his own sobrassada, but having met the organic farmer who makes it in the traditional way from native black and white pigs on his 300-acre farm, he quickly committed to a year's worth of the cured meat (around 1,000kg). "He also grows his own chilies to spice it. It's really special," he adds.
Another European supplier is a small olive grove based in Sicily, from which Parry uses for his olive oil and vermouth.
"They ship it directly over here and I love that we're able to work so close with suppliers and create such a good product and get a good price because we're dealing direct with the farmer," he explains. "It's cheaper for us and we charge less to the guest. I like the idea of sitting in Soho when it's hot and enjoying two or three vermouths at less than £5, which won't break the bank. It's a humble set-up and you see them in every bar in Spain."
A bit closer to home, Parry is excited to be working once again with Pembrokeshire seaweed and shellfish farm Câr-y-Môr and, while he says his Mountain menu doesn't "shout seaweed", there will be hints to the ingredient in dishes, such as his spider crab and seaweed omelette. For this he will source organic eggs and raw butter from pasture-fed cows a short drive away from Câr-y-Môr. The same supplier's sugar kelp seaweed and spider crabs will be folded through the omelette, which will be basted with whipped butter and more sugar kelp, giving the dish a vibrant, speckled green appearance.
"Making things in-house is a really good thing to do, but also finding a producer that makes it and then committing to taking that from them helps them grow," he says. "Suppliers have always been the driver for me – food and agriculture go hand in hand."
The produce
- Vermouth and olive oil: Salvatore Marino, Sicily
- Citrus: Todoli Foundation, Valencia
- Sobrassada: Lluis Cirera, Mallorca
- Meat: Phillip Warren Farmers, Cornwall
- Pork: Gothelney Farm, Somerset
- Fish: day boats, Kernow; sashimi, Lizard's Point Cornwall
- Lobster: Lockdown Lobsters, Llyn Penisula, Câr-y-Môr, Pembrokeshire
- Wheat and flour: Field Bakery (part of Gothelney Farm, Somerset); Flourish Produce, Cambridgeshire; Gilchesters Organics, Sawbridgeworth
- Welsh heritage grains: Felin Ganol, west Wales
- Seaweed: Câr-y-Môr, Pembrokeshire
- Scallops: Hand-dived by Frazer Pugh of the Hand Picked Scallop Company, Brixham
- Mussels and oysters: Menai Oysters, Anglesey
From the menu
Raw sobrassada with honey
Cured dairy beef
Oyster from the Menai Straits
Red mullet and scallops
Fresh cheese and raw prawns
Cucumbers, peas and marigold
Grilled vine leaves
Vine and Sungold tomatoes
Summer girolles and violet artichokes
Spider crab omelette
Fried bread with greens and anchovies
Braised early summer vegetables
Grilled red peppers with razor clams
Tripe
Beef sweetbread
Whole lobster caldereta
Pink bream
Turbot head
Lamb chops
Tamworth sow collar (three year)
Jersey beef rib (four year)
Lettuce and elderflower
Wood-fired rice
Smoked potatoes
Ensaimada
Torrija with grilled strawberries
Red gooseberries with hay cream
Tomos Parry's kitchens
- 2023 Mountain, London
- 2020 Brat X Climpson's Arch, London
- 2018 Brat, London
- 2014-2017 Kitty Fisher's, London
- 2013-2014 Climpson's Arch, London
- 2012-2013 Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs, London
- 2009-2012 River Café, London
- 2005-2009 Le Gallois, Cardiff
