Tomos Parry

Anglesey-born chef Tomos Parry is the man behind the Michelin-starred Brat in East London where the grill is king, and his whole turbot dish is worthy of a knighthood. He’s also cooked for the Welsh squad in Tokyo, gives cooking tips to the players and worked with the Sheriff on his own culinary creation.

Anglesey is like California, it’s one of those places that has mountains, sea, beaches and green hills. It means you can see both the snow on the mountain tops and the beaches at the same time. It’s very dramatic, which isn’t necessarily the case in a lot of Wales.

North Wales was all about football and my family was the same with my uncles involved as coaches at Bangor City and Wrexham, so it was my mum who had the greater interest in rugby and would take me to Wales games.

The journey from Anglesey to Cardiff is intense. It’s not a long way in terms of miles, but it takes about six hours as you have to travel through all the Welsh mountains so it makes for some tough driving, and the logistics of getting to an international were always difficult, but my mum would do it – one heck of a drive. 

Robin McBryde went to my school. He was the only famous rugby player in Anglesey. We had others later, such as George North, and there were probably some before, but he was the only one I knew, and he’d often come into the schools to give talks. Everyone knew about him.

I went to Cardiff when I was sixteen. I’d worked in kitchens in Anglesey, but to cook anywhere good you had to go to Cardiff. I went on to work in a French restaurant called Le Gallois, it’s shut now, but it was there I first started to see the deep connection between rugby and food. 

On match days, we’d be serving huge menus from about 11am, but this connection goes beyond that. A friend of mine wrote a book about the glory days of French rugby – Brothers in Arms – and he talked about all the famous players from the 80s and 90s and so many of them went on to open up restaurants or vineyards. Football and food just aren’t connected like that. 

The food of Brat is inspired by Basque Country. On both sides of the border, they play rugby, even in Spain – where it’s not played as much – they’ve got a rugby culture. The food, the language and rugby, it’s an eccentric country, but it’s rugby country, like Wales. Whenever I go there, that’s what we often end up talking about with other chefs, it just shows how big that connection is.

Watching rugby reminds me of home. My love for rugby really started when I went to Cardiff and saw the impact it has on the city. Rugby keeps me in touch with Wales, especially now I’m not living there – it ties me in with my friends, my heritage, my language. Even when I’m watching Scarlets in England, it still connects me with Wales.

We don’t have many famous people in Anglesey. Although Aled Jones is from my little village and his mum was our primary school teacher. At his height, he used to get helicopter rides from the village and he’d get so much fan mail from around the world that his mum would bring it in to class for us to open – it was pretty strange opening letters from random people in Japan sent to Aled. Now we also have George North.

George North is underrated. He’s not even thirty, but his try-scoring record is insane – 43 tries in 102 Tests – and it’s crazy that this player from Anglesey got voted on the world’s best fifteen. He’s probably my favourite player, although I’ve always loved Gavin Henson for those cult moments, and obviously the likes of Scott Quinnell too, Alun Wyn Jones, and Jonathan Davies – I love his style of rugby.

The second half of my life has been rugby. From my twenties onwards rugby has dominated, either from living in Cardiff or just how entwined the worlds of food and rugby are. 

I cooked dinner for Ken Owens, Alun Wyn Jones and Jonathan Davies in Tokyo. It was during the Rugby World Cup and I was over there travelling and cooking with the Wagyumafia (wagyumafia.com) and we did a chef’s table [where people eat at a table inside the restaurant kitchen] in the city centre. They were there with their wives and they really love their food. I’ve stayed in touch with them since, and Ken and Jonathan have both been to Brat.

I helped Ken Owens make his own biltong. We did a recipe collaboration with this lovely lady called Ruth from Cwm Farm (cwmfarm.co.uk) – she heads up the food set-up at Scarlets too – to create some new biltong [The Sheriff’s Biltong]. Ken took it out with him on the British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa. They’re all about the biltong over there, so it was funny having him going out there selling them back their own goods. 

I love how the rugby boys are promoting Welsh artisanal produce. It’s not about them having their face on things or anything naff, it’s a real enthusiasm for produce. I feel like it’s part of their heritage, like with Ken, he’s from a farming background, so it all makes sense. I’ve also given some feedback to Shane Williams on his coffee with Lee Byrne, Mike Phillips and James Hook (Fab Four Coffee Company) and they love it all too. 

I still love seeing the clips of Ray Gravell and Keith Floyd. It’s a classic episode where they cook together and it’s just epic, Ray is so charismatic with Keith that it’s just a beautiful thing to watch. I think it really symbolises what I’ve been talking about, how intrinsically linked the sport is with food.