This Chef Cooks London’s Best Steak in a Kitchen That’s Half the Size of Yours

"Is it necessary that I'm in the kitchen for the interview and will you want to do any filming? It's quite a small kitchen … you'll see what I mean when you're here."

Before our interview, Tomos Parry, head chef of Basque-inspired restaurant Kitty Fisher's in London's Mayfair, warns me twice in emails and once over the phone about the size of his kitchen.

He wasn't exaggerating. On arrival, I descend a narrow staircase at the back of the restaurant with Parry, emerging into another dining area. In the corner is the kitchen. I resist the urge to blurt out that it's about the same size as the one in my shoebox flat, and hotter than the time the extractor fan packed in.

"We can fit about three people in here at any one time and usually this fire is roaring, with the flames leaping up," says Parry.

He then apologies, for the purpose of my photos, that things are a bit quiet now lunch service has finished. A bead of sweat rolling down my forehead, I assure him it's OK.

Cooking over the grill is what the Welsh chef, who has done stints at The River Café and noma, is best known for. After taking the reins as head chef of Hackney-railway-arch-turned-restaurant Climpson's Arch and honing his grill skills, Parry moved west to become head chef of Kitty Fisher's in December 2014.

And of course, the grill had to come with him.

"This is a listed building, so we had restrictions on what we could do but we had to get the fire in," says Parry as he chucks some courgettes on the grill. "It's custom-made for the kitchen and we got inspiration from Japanese yakitori grills because they're long and narrow. And you know, we need all the space we can get."

Parry spots me pointing my camera at the pile of logs in the corner.

"We only use oak, which is sourced from the London Log Company, because we need something that's hot and long-burning," he explains. "Any delicate wood would just get lost when we cook."

I ask what the attraction is to cooking in this way.

"I'm not sure what it was exactly. I think it stops you from overthinking and overcomplicating things. Your focus is always on the food and if it tastes good," says Parry. "It's not the most out-there food or the most exciting but, without being too corny, it's just a fairly honest way of cooking."

It's the "What you see is what you get" element that Parry finds attractive in cheffing, too.

"I like the fact that what you put it, you get out," he says. "I went to university and what you put in didn't always come out."

Parry admits that a politics degree isn't the usual way into a career as a chef ("I basically had to finish otherwise I would have got killed") but says that cooking was always on his mind.

"I wanted to work for this restaurant in Cardiff which was the best one in town. I worked there for free for a long time while I was at university," he says. "But when I finished my course, I went straight into the kitchen."

Parry continues: "I like that the harder you work, the better the product is. It's that simple. I started cooking relatively late so I had to cram in as much experience as possible really. I kept changing restaurants because I had to get as much into my head, in as short a time as possible."

I comment that he must have learned very different things at The River Café and noma. Parry laughs: "Well actually, I think they had a lot more in common. They're both produce driven and source locally, but are still very true to their area."

This appreciation of produce has clearly stuck with him.

"I appreciate molecular gastronomy, but I'm definitely not drawn to eating in those kind of restaurants because I find the food isn't about the produce when it's been so processed and messed around with," Parry explains. "I quite like it when you can taste where the food is from."

What does he mean by that?

"Like a bouillabaisse. If it's done well, you can taste the sea and you know immediately where it's from. It's evocative," he says. "You can taste the sun in a really ripe white peach. And it's the same with grapes. A very rich, full-bodied grape comes from where it's been really sunny."

Self-conscious that he's waxing lyrical, Parry quickly adds: "It's really corny. I don't think like this every day but when I stop and think about it, I guess that's what drives me."

I ask about his favourite bits of produce at Kitty Fisher's.

"We have some great produce coming out of Cornwall but one thing we source from abroad is the Galician beef," he says.

I nod a bit too enthusiastically, then mutter quickly that I haven't actually eaten it. I feel like I have, though—practically every review of the restaurant mentions the beef.

"That steak is quite an amazing piece of beef. It's from a retired dairy cow when it gets to ten- to twelve-years-old. The UK can't legally do that so we get it from Spain," Parry explains. "I tried it in a restaurant called Etxebarri in Spain, which is the mecca for grill chefs, and then had to go in search of a producer. The flavour is crazy because it's such an old animal—the flavour is very deep."

Despite opening Kitty Fisher's to rave reviews, winning chef of the year in 2014 at the Young British Foodies, and regularly cooking for the likes of Nigella Lawson and David Cameron, Parry seems unfazed by his success.

"We got in there, started cooking, and opened the doors the day after. There was no build-up or menu planning so it all came so quickly," admits Parry. "I suppose there is some pressure to manage people's expectations when they've booked three months in advance. But I'm never in doubt about the food."

And the awards?

"When you're a chef, you don't cook for awards," he says. "It's really nice to win and everything that comes with that. But it's not what is driving you when you're in the kitchen."

Just before Parry dives back into the second half of his double shift, I ask where he hopes to take his cooking in future.

"I think I'll stick with the grill-based stuff. But maybe with a slighter bigger set up."