Tomos Parry's Wales

Famed for druids, vikings, Land Rovers and lobster, the island of Ynys Mon is just the tip of the culinary iceberg for gastronomy, says the Michelin-starred Welsh che.

Words by Alex Mead

It’s suffered attacks by Romans, fearful of its druid power; had its fertile lands ravished by Vikings; it gave birth to the Land Rover and it’s home to the town with the longest name in the UK; life is never dull on Ynys Môn, the UK’s seventh largest island off the north-western coast of Wales. Anglesey, as it’s known by many, is more than just the sum of its past, although its former moniker of Môn Mam Cymru (mother of Wales), due it being the ‘bread basket’ of Wales, still rings true.

For Tomos Parry, the man behind Michelin-starred Brat, and the acclaimed Mountain, his homeland is something special. ‘There’s this little estuary in between the mainland and our little island,‘ explains Tomos. ‘And I grew up just over the bridge, overlooking Snowdon. So you’ve got Angelsey, the beach, the Menai Strait and the mountains. It’s quite rare to have that sort of landscape; only a few places in the world have it and it’s quite magical.

‘I actually took it for granted growing up,‘ he admits, ‘it’s very beautiful, and you only realise that when you take a step back. My mum’s house actually still has that view: fields, beach, sea, mountains, even castles. If you go there when it’s nice weather too, it’s quite other-worldly.‘

The chef’s mum was a nurse while his dad worked as an engineer with the NHS, also doubling up as the longest- serving lifeboat man in Britain. ‘I grew up in a little town called Llandegfan, which is between Beaumaris and Menai Bridge. My mum and dad’s jobs meant we had a really big connection to the area; I think my mum knew everyone in North Wales.

‘It’s just a lovely place to grow up,‘ continues Tomos, whose first language is Welsh. ‘We’ve got Bangor just across the strait. It’s a university town and brought a lot of diversity to the area, so you have this lovely blend of rural life and all its quirks with quite a cool cosmopolitan feel.‘

The region, he explains, was booming in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. ‘North Wales was the main place people went on holiday from Manchester and Liverpool. Every musician from those cities always talk about summer holidays in North Wales. Before there were cheap flights, where else would you go but the North Wales Riviera?‘

While the emergence of foreign travel had an impact, the area is now on the rise, with local produce front and centre. ‘We always used to eat fresh every day, even though Mum might have worked three jobs,‘ says Parry. ‘The dishes were planned around working life, things you put on in the morning leave to cook and then come back and they’re ready. Not to be romantic, but we had cheaper cuts not because we were poor, but because it made sense.

‘We have amazing shellfish,‘ he says of not just Anglesey but Wales as a whole. ‘Mussels, oysters, crabs, lobsters, absolutely abundant, crazy amounts, we took it for granted. You’d go fishing, catch mackerel, then take it back to the pub and they’d cook it for you.‘

Tomos moved to Cardiff to study politics and history at the university, but found himself spending spare time in the kitchens of a renowned restaurant. ‘Le Gallois, in Pontcanna, was the best executed and best-sourced restaurant in South Wales at the time,’ he says. ‘It was very classic French cuisine and the chef had worked for London’s best guys.

‘In summer, I worked in seafood shacks back home,‘ he continues. ‘Prepping mussels and oysters – the same produce we have in our restaurant today – but until Cardiff I never thought of it as a career.‘

Instead he wanted to be a journalist, so he could immerse himself in cultures from around the world. But when he left university, he found it more appealing to explore those cultures through food and wine. He worked full-time at Le Gallois before moving to London – passing through the kitchens of The River Café – and then it was Copenhagen, and Noma, and back to London, making a name for himself at Kitty Fisher’s. His goals were to cook simply, over fire – as he did so often back home with summer barbecues – with the best produce, ideally Welsh if he could sort out the supply chain. They came to fruition first in his pop-up at Climpson’s Arch – which would later become a permanent site – and also at the now Michelin-starred Brat, but Mountain was the true realisation of his ambition, a gastronomic love letter to his homeland. ‘Mountain has so much Welsh produce – a lot of shellfish, lobsters, which were a huge part of Anglesea. I know it’s decadent, but lobster was everywhere.

‘We’ve got these beautiful seaweeds from Pembrokeshire too,’ he continues. ‘The seas have incredible minerality and cleanliness. I work with a really cool collective, Câr y Môr seaweed farm, where the dad has been in seaweed farming his whole life. They also do scallops and beautiful mussels.

‘The Pembrokeshire food scene is strong – something exciting is happening there; we also get a lot of Welsh game and saltmarsh lamb. The grasses are amazing – we get this lovely pasture-fed raw butter,’ he adds.

The sourcing needs of his restaurants require him to return frequently. ‘My perfect road trip would be starting off in Cardiff, which has an amazing port history with different ethnic groups and backgrounds from the docks; there’s a lot of multiculturalism

‘The drive along the west coast into North Wales and Anglesey is so stunning – it could rival the west coast of America’

in Cardiff – you find good places doing different cuisines, different nationalities, which doesn’t get talked about a lot.

‘Then you’d travel to Swansea, where you’ve got the Mumbles scene and the shellfish shacks. Jonathan Woolway from St John opened The Shed there, and his menu is really exciting,’ he says. ‘It sums up the best of the Welsh food scene – incredible execution, sourcing all from that area. It’s basically what’s best in Wales right now – his St John approach of non- compromise, but using Welsh produce; it’s perfect.‘

‘Then you’d drive to Wrights in Llanarthney: simple, organic lunches, soups, vegetables, natural wines. Then you’d go on to Aberystwyth and the west coast into North Wales and Anglesey. It’s so stunning, epic, with so many places you can stop off at – it could rival the west coast of America.‘

Tomos’s drive takes you from low-lying Pembrokeshire through Snowdonia, going past Cader Idris. ‘My son’s named after it,‘ he says. ‘It’s this massive mountain, really spectacular, with a hole and a big lake in it.‘ He’s not alone in being taken by the landscapes of Wales. ‘We’re lucky to be able to employ people from all across the planet,‘ he says. ‘And they’re been blown away by it when I take them there.‘

And it’s not just about the food and the views. ‘I’ve taken a couple of team members to watch rugby and one from Brazil said he’d never experienced anything as close to watching Brazil play football as watching Wales play rugby – like a carnival,’ he says.

‘With my job, I’m lucky to be able to travel to lots of places in the world, which gives a sense of perspective of Wales on a global scale – and it can hold its own. The food, the produce, the waters, it’s absurd how good it is. Then you have the people, the passion, the work ethic, and you want to shout about it – it deserves to be shouted about. It’s a small country, but its sense of identity is huge. The sea, the mountains... When you go there, it’s overwhelming.‘

This article was taken from the June/July 2024 issue of Food and Travel. To subscribe today, click here.