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The Monocle Daily
Is a summit between Trump and Putin ever likely to happen? Plus: Sarkozy begins his five-year term
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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 21st October 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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Viktor Orban anxiously wonders whether to put the rest of the bunting up. Is an imprisoned ex president actually a sign of a healthy democracy? And Donald Trump's presidency continues to furnish its own metaphors. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London, I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Alex von Tonzelman and Phil Tinlein will discuss the day's big stories and we'll hear from Chef Thomas Parry of London's Michelin starred Mountain and Brat. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Alex von Tonzelman, historian, author and screenwriter, and by Phil Tinline, journalist, documentary maker and author, most recently of Ghosts of Iron Mountain. Hello to you both. Hi, Phil, on that plug, you have recently been shilling that book, as I understand it, at a literary festival. Did you, while you were there, have the definitive writers festival experience, which is that one where they put you on a table with a pile of your books and a pen and you're right in between two much more popular authors with huge cues and no one paying any attention to you at all. This is, yes, a story from real life.
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C
That's astonishing because that's exactly what happened, at least for the first couple of minutes, which was the longest couple of minutes I've had for a while. I had Dorian Linsky and Ian Dunt, excellent journalists and authors of a book on conspiracy theory, which in my defence is smaller and cheaper than mine.
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B
That's where you've gone wrong.
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C
Yeah. And on the other side, Mariana Spring, who is the queen of all she surveys on this topic. But after the first couple of minutes, I did have some very nice conversations with some people who actually wanted to buy it, which was a great relief.
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B
Yeah, Alex, I remember changing, taking the little sign out of the placard in front of me and adding puppet show plus above my knee and selling one book to somebody who got the Spinal Tap reference. So that was, that was, that was something we are going to be talking about knocking down solemn sacred objects at some juncture later in the show. Have you got a book you would like to refer to in reference to that?
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A
Oh, funny you should mention that. Yes. My most recent book was fallen idols, 12 statues that made History about the putting up and pulling down of monuments which is sort of keeps coming back and being relevant again. And yes indeed is today it was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize at the time.
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B
And you have also recently been to Naples, a city I have not visited for many decades. And the thing I want to ask you about that is, did you. Well, how do I put this? Did you see anybody triple parked on the road along the shoreline who looked like they may have been there since I saw them, because I remember going there thinking there are people who've been trying to get their cars out of there since about the 1960s, I think.
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A
Yes, there's some really old cars trapped in the edge of the Lunga Mare. Yeah, it's a fantastic city. Actually what I was very interested in it, of course, because of this issue about so sort of statues, symbolism monuments and so on is, is the complete gnonification, possibly deification of Diego Maradona. The cities. You know, I mean, technically the patron saint of Naples is Saint Gennaro, but it's Diego Maradona.
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B
Realistically, around the same time I went to Naples, I did go to a pizza place in Rome run by a Neapolitan which was in which was also basically a shrine to Diego Maradona. It was entirely decorated with photos that the proprietor had taken of Diego Maradona in every single one of them. Diego Maradona bearing expression which unmistakably radiated Christ. Not this guy again. Anyway, we will start in Budapest whose prospects of hosting a discussion of Ukraine between the presidents of the United States and Russia appear to be receding, along with the hopes of anybody who had invested in the production of souvenir tea towels. US President Donald Trump only ever specified his favourite time frame, I. E. Within two weeks. A bluff familiar to any author who has been asked to demonstrate some evidence of their labours. And Russian President Vladimir Putin also appeared in no hurry and there now appears to be gathering suggestion that it isn't going to happen anyway and not for the first time or in the first context during the present Russia Ukraine conflict, nobody in Europe seems to have much ability to sway events. Phil, was this a thing that was ever going to happen or was it one of those things where you, you would think we would have learned by now as a media that Donald Trump making a vague suggestion is not actually any guarantee that said thing is ever going to occur?
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C
No, I mean, I think to think that something he says should be taken literally is to kind of go back several stages in the process of critical theory, long before deconstruction. Post structuralism. Structuralism, back to something sort of gentle and Victorian and rather quaint. So, no, I mean, apparently the person who was involved in suggesting this would be the location and in making it happen until it now probably isn't going to, is Steve Witkoff, who has the curious kind of dual CV at the moment of having, if it doesn't fall apart as well, which it looks like it might, played apparently a faintly useful role in the Gaza Israel process, but also has been, you know, witless on Ukraine and thereby continues to be so with this. So, no, I mean, it's an absolutely classic case of all talk and no walk.
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B
Does it seem vaguely possible, Alex, that at no point anybody actually asked President Putin if he would be interested in participating?
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A
It is possible. The Kremlin has also said today that they have no idea when such a thing would happen. But they can also be perhaps not the most reliable source to undermine what Phil said about Trump. I think the person who'll be very sad about this, of course, is Viktor Orban, who I think was very much looking forward to hosting this grand summit between two world leaders he deeply admires, and now he doesn't get to do that. So I think that was a sort of. Obviously, there was quite a lot of anxiety in Europe about this happening in Hungary specifically, obviously, which has been been leaning very far to the right itself and, you know, rather delinquent within the eu. But I think Orban definitely would have seen this as a moment to have a real big global stage moment, and I'm afraid he's had the rug pull.
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B
Yes, well, Phil, Viktor Orban being disappointed is something that we can take away from this. But on that subject, seriously, if we set aside Orban's possibly somewhat shabby and disreputable reasons for wanting to have hosted this, is it necessarily a bad thing in the current context that there is at least one country which is a member of the EU and NATO which has some sort of relationship with Russia?
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C
I mean, I think that's pretty much, yeah, a bad thing. I think, you know, there's plenty of places where they could have met, as Zelenskyy pointed out. They could have met in Turkey, they could have met in Saudi Arabia. Not particularly nice countries, necessarily, but they could have met in a whole bunch of countries. There is also the resonance that Budapest is where the Ukrainians signed away their nuclear deterrent, which obviously is not particularly fantastic symbolism from that point of view. It also has other symbolisms earlier on about what Russia tends to do to countries. No, I think the Point of NATO is to be an alliance against aggression and forces of anti democracy. So having a member who is on that side, in fact now the biggest member as well, heading in that same direction, is, I would say straightforwardly a bad thing.
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The forces of democracy, as the EU would like to think of themselves, I'm sure, Alex, are acting as such this week. They are expected this week to agree yet another round of sanctions on Russia, which may or may not do what the previous 3 million rounds of sanctions haven't. But the big leap forward is being telegraphed as they're going to use 140 billion euros of frozen Russian assets as an interest free loan to Ukraine. So they seem at last, after three and a half years, to have arrived at a compromise between just seizing Russia's money and giving it to Ukraine, as some people, probably most notably Ukraine had suggested, and doing nothing with it. Because that is potentially a bit of a can of worms if they do go ahead and do this. Is that a big leap forward? I mean, 140 billion euros is a lot of money.
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A
It is a great deal of money. Certainly buy a lot of Patriot missiles. If Zelenskyy gets his way and gets to buy some of those. It is. There are obviously very mixed feelings on this from commentators, even sort of commentators who broadly are sympathetic Ukraine and so forth, because there is a feeling, a worry among some people that at some point Russia is going to be in a post Putin situation and that money may well be needed. You know, I mean, obviously we're all sitting here in Europe remembering no doubt our kind of GCSE history on the Versailles Treaty and how actually, you know, you can over squeeze a lemon and if you do squeeze it till the pips squeak, as I said, you may end up with a problem further down the road. So I would say there are some people who won't be delighted about that, even if they are potentially in support of Ukraine and so forth. But yes, it's a great deal of money and I'm sure Zelenskyy thinks he can use that positively.
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B
Phil, just finally on this one, to go back to where we came in, is there actually any imaginable point at this point to a summit between Trump and Putin, especially one that does not include President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine? Zelenskyy had, of course, as he always does, said, yep, sure would be happy to be there when the future of the country I actually lead is being discussed. But he did not appear to be part of the plan, at least as Trump outlined It.
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C
No, I mean, I think there's no point at all. And I think talking to journalists who've been in Ukraine reporting on it, you know, what they hear from people who are actually fighting or involved with the. The process of fighting is, you know, if Europe abandons us, we will carry on. This is a kind of generational existential struggle, and you cannot possibly have a viable peace if the country that has been attacked and carved up isn't involved in the negotiations. I mean, self. Evidently. And I think it was interesting that Zelenskyy was talking about what he clearly imagined might be the more sort of workable version of this, where he sits in one room, Putin sits in another room, and Trump sort of shuttles between the two. I can't quite imagine Trump doing that, but I can imagine a different American.
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B
On a segue, possibly, or perhaps on.
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C
A gold.
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B
Or a golf cart.
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A
Yeah, maybe if there could be some sort of golden throne, it might be that rotated perhaps in a wall.
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C
Ideally enough, a plane dropping.
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Shut up. We are wasted in our current occupations to France now and to the ambiguous spectacle of a head of state and or government ending up in the clink. On the one hand, it is obviously bad that someone occupying a position of public trust should have committed such serious crimes. On the. It is good that the law is enforced even or especially against those who make it. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who served five years as president, has begun serving five years as prisoner, having been convicted of criminal conspiracy to solicit campaign funds from the capacious pockets of unlamented Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi. Sarkozy denies everything and so forth, and an appeal is pending. Alex, were you moved by his arguably somewhat lachrymose pleas for sympathy? Truth will prevail, he said, but how crushing the price will have been, one likes to think, with somebody playing a mournful accordion behind him.
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A
Well, there has been rather a staged managed day today of Sarkozy leaving his. Leaving his home with his wife, Carla Bruni, of course, supermodel and all this. And then the sort of rather grandiose announcement that the books he was taking with him to prison were a biography of Jesus and the Count of Monte Cristo, which is like, okay, I think you're laying it on quite thick at this point, you know. All right, I think we get the message. Biography of Jesus, man. It's a sort of fairly extraordinary performance. Obviously, he does maintain that he is innocent of these charges. He is appealing. I mean, who knows what will happen there and all that. But I think you know, especially when we're sort of looking at the situation, you know, in America where Trump, who, you know, potentially was involved in inciting a coup attempt and is, you know, and then serve really no consequences for that whatsoever, and is back in office, I find it quite a relief to see that actually consequences can happen. And, you know, whatever is the future of this case, whatever happens next, I think actually it's really important not only for the law to be enforced, but to be seen to be enforced, including on the, you know, potentially the highest politicians in the land, the most powerful people.
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B
Just to follow that up quickly, Alex, because I did have a note here to discuss his reading list. You insinuate that he is troweling it on somewhat by selecting Alexander Dumas, the Count of Monte Cristo, and Jean Christian Pettifield, biography of Jesus Christ. What is it you, what is it you insinuate that Sarkozy is troweling?
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A
Was it not clear? Okay, okay, let me unpack that one. So the Count of Monte Cristo, of course, is a story of an innocent man sent to prison who escapes to clear his name. So, you know, that's the sort of.
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B
The President Sarkozy escape would be amazing.
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A
It would be pretty exciting. I mean, after the Louvre heist, it.
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B
Would be even more.
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A
Are we not due?
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Yeah, exactly.
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A prison bust by a president. By a president. I mean, I think that's sort of where we're going.
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C
But we should be clear. We're not saying that was him, right?
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A
No. Well, I think, you know, he probably has an alibi, to be perfectly honest, given this situation. But, yes, probably hadn't done that. And yes, the biography of Jesus, I think he's trying to point to somebody historically who was crucified for merely being a very good man.
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B
Do you expect, Phil, that he will find much of an audience among the French public for this?
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C
Well, it's been striking, hasn't it, that certain senior French politicians, including Macron, have been prepared to, you know, play this very gently and very much sort of, you know, isn't it sad that one of us is getting banged up, which seems to me to be a political mistake. I mean, the whole point, as Alex says, is if you commit a crime, you go to jail. And sort of everyone standing around emphasizing the difference between very high level politicians and the public would rather seem to cut against that in a way which is unnecessary and, as I say, not helpful. I mean, as Alex says, the contrast with America is very striking. We've had George Santos released just this week, essentially because Trump decided it was all a bit of a pity and he definitely always voted Republican. The people who were involved in the January 6th insurrection has happened to have been let out of prison. You have people who are involved in the prosecutions now being chased by the DOJ in ways that fairly self evidently not impartial. So this is a moment where in our politics in the uk, we need to be absolutely making clear to the public, or the public needs to be hearing from our politicians, that if you commit a crime, you do your time and that that applies to everybody. It seems to me there's little more important about making democracy function than holding to that principle.
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B
I mean, he does insist that he is going to appeal and so forth. And as Phil suggest, Alex, he, he will be kept company in prison, apparently by the Justice Minister himself, Gerald Daman. Just to be clear, he's not in jail, he's just promising to visit. But yes, President Macron has let him keep his Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and so forth, which he, he might be able to trade for tobacco, who knows, but, but I think.
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A
Apparently a TV will cost him €14.15amonth. So, you know, I, I reckon the.
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B
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor will buy a few months worth of television. But as, as who has written about yourself, the sort of hubris of those in charge more than once. It's the offence itself that kind of baffles me. I mean, yes, I'm going to get into a backchannel financial agreement with Muama. Actual Gaddafi, of all people. What could possibly go wrong? If any emissary of Gaddafi had ever come to me offering me money to do anything at all or engage in any sort of partnership, I would like to think I would have regarded that from the far of a barge poll, and I am very far in my remit of responsibilities from the presidency of France.
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A
Yes, I mean, it doesn't seem like you'd really need a political science degree to work out. That one was probably a bit of a bad plan, you know, pretty notorious at that stage. It is quite extraordinary. And you know, and it seems, I mean, I think sometimes, what can we say, people in power get a sense that they're untouchable, which is exactly why you do need sometimes to send them to prison when they've done something very bad, you know, and make it clear that they aren't actually and that this sort of stuff isn't acceptable. Of course, you know, as I say, he is appealing. Who knows what will happen there. It could be that there is a different perspective on it and that he is innocent. But, you know, that justice process has to run either way. I would say, you know, when you said about the popularity, that certainly according to some stats I read today, 6 in 10 French people think his sentence is about rights. So it seems pretty clear that the majority actually do support what is going on and want to see justice done.
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B
Well, sticking with the subject of heads of state with criminal records to Washington, D.C. where the wrecking ball is being swung at the East Wing of the White House. The beginning of construction work upon President Donald Trump's ballroom, which will almost certainly be a monument to restrained good taste. Very unlikely to suggest an aircraft hangar with decor evocative of Saddam Hussein's bathrooms. Trump has claimed that the $250 million cost will be covered by private donors. Said donors are yet to be named. But of course, be absolutely certain that they have contributed, whoever they are, with no expectation of quid pro quo from this famously unbiddable statesman. Phil, how excited are you to see how the finished ballroom will look?
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C
Well, less excited than I am about the image of it. The image of the East Wing having been sort of basically had its front destroyed. It was very striking. Looking at the comments on the Washington Post story about this, lots of people really quite cross the second comment. Comment from somebody with a splendid name of Trimson Grondag, which I'm not, almost certainly a real person, isn't an acronym, says an anagram, rather that says, the demolition of the East Wing is an apt metaphor for Trump's demolition of the federal government and our Constitution, which, you know, doesn't have much subtlety, but, you know, seems to express a general view. And I do think they need to be a little bit careful about generating images like this. I mean, you had, you know, the banquet of the tech barons genuflecting. You've had Musk with his right arm doing something untoward. You've had Musk with the chains. You've had the row of oligarchs at the inauguration. We are now seeing more images of, you know, political sort of heft and symbolism than is helpful. So I'm much more excited to see that than I am to see the kind of horrific second Gilded Age bling nonsense that's coming.
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B
Is it actually unhelpful from Donald Trump's perspective, though, Alex? Because he has a base who love all this stuff. And I think it's a reasonable assumption that that same base are going to look at the East Wing being literally bulldozed and think this great possibly so.
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A
Well I mean, that's sort of what I'd say. And that, you know, you've got to remember that Trump himself and lots of people in his administration made the most almighty hullabaloo about people pulling down a few completely crummy Confederate statues that were of no artistic merit. And then to take a literal wrecking ball to the front of the White House is sort of quite some chutzpah, really, as a sort of switch. But in a sense, I think both of these things are part of the same, same, the same story. These are both parts of their construction of the narrative of what America is, what American history is, what their place in it is. All of this. They're quite consistent actions, actually, if that is how you see history in a kind of MAGA context. And, you know, and although I do think actually that Phil makes a point that lots of Trump supporters actually, I think probably are a bit uneasy about this because the White House did then run around telling people not to take photos of what had happened in the East Wing and not put them on social media and all this. So actually, I'm not sure that this is great publicity for them. I think Americans are quite sensitive to the literals especially. I'm afraid Phil's already mentioned it. I won't go into detail with the disgusting video that Trump posted on True Social, the one that we very much enjoyed, the New York Times saying, you know, suspected to be AI I suspect it was, I don't think it was really filmed of him flying a fighter jet and dropping audio on protesters, sort of. So to, you know, one day sort of post a video of yourself dropping the worst thing imaginable on the American flag and the American people, and then the next day to start bulldozing the White House is, you know, is quite.
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B
Some symbolism, Phil question to which the answer is obviously, yes, the list of donors, that probably is something American voters should be invited to scrutinise, isn't it?
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C
Of course, absolutely. But that then plays back into what I was saying, saying before, you know, that if you're a Trump opponent, if you can then start associating those people with that image of the smashed up sacral palace of the people, then you can start getting some leverage out of it. I mean, it is an abiding astonishment to me that the immense sort of opportunity for a sort of left populism in America has not yet managed to make the headway that I, I think it might one day do. But that list would be very helpful feed for that.
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B
I mean, just finally on this Alex, is there any hope at all? And I feel like we have been screaming this question into the wind now for more than 10 years that at any stage there will be the thing where a plurality of even his. His fan base just go, ah, actually I think that might be a bit much. If not that, then his somewhat Albert Speer adjacent plans for further remodeling Washington D.C. he wants to build a big.
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A
Triumphal arch y he does, which is a very famous symbol of kingship as well. He's really digging into this king thing. And of course, you know, the protests were called no Kings that were against him this weekend. That was in response to, I think, very near the beginning of his presidency. He posted again, I think, a mocked up fake cover of Time magazine with himself wearing a crown on it. And that was sort of. Then the response came to that no kings. He seems pretty keen on digging into this whole king thing, you know, which of course famously is what George Washington turned down. And the reason that the US didn't become, to many people's surprise, a monarchy was the initial rejection of kingship. So it's interesting to me how much he's leaning into that. And I do wonder again though, you know, yes, it may well be popular with 30 to 40,000 weirdos who follow him on Twitter and Truth Social. Is it popular with his wider base? I'm not so sure. I think it's the sort of thing that could go sour quite quickly, actually, if other things do not stack up.
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B
Well to the subject of urban cycling and therefore the likelihood that some or perhaps all of us sitting around this table will spend quite a lot of the next week fielding irate emails from people enraged by the merest suggestion that rules should apply to them. Lime, which offers electric bicycles and e scooters for hire in 30 countries across five continents, has recorded its 1 billionth ride since its launch in 2017. The numbers of red lights ridden through footpaths sped along, crossings ignored, pedestrians hit and or terrorised and discarded, bikes dumped in thoroughfare blocking scrap heaps can only be wondered at. Phil, how fulsome would you say your congratulations are on Lime's 1 billionth customer?
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C
I would say that they were English and reserved.
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B
Okay.
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C
But I want to read you what Mr. Wayne Ting, the CEO, said about this, because I think it's very moving.
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B
Did he say it while staring into a phone and riding through a red light at 20 kilometres an hour?
- [24:52]
C
You may say that I couldn't possibly comment, but he said something meaningful, a more seamless each of these Rides meant something meaningful, a more seamless commute, a connection to visit friends and family, a moment of joy in someone's day, time saved avoiding traffic and instead spent with loved ones. We should draw attention to the fact that the excellent economist journalist Tom Sasse has been reporting recently on the epidemic of phone theft in London. And lime bikes are apparently an extremely useful tool therein. So whether they necessarily bring a moment of joy to the person whose phone is taken, much as they may well do to the person who gets gets the phone, I'm slightly circumspect.
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B
Listeners will probably be aware by now, Alex, that I'm the approximate pedestrian equivalent of the angry, militant cyclist. So lime bikes are not for me, I think it's fair to say. Have you ever used one?
- [25:42]
A
So I'm afraid to continue the lack of diversity of opinion on this panel, no. And also, I'm actually a very poor cyclist and I don't think I'm really sufficiently competent.
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B
It doesn't stop a lot of people.
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A
I know, but it stops me. But actually, I think line bikes in particular, I really do think are rather a menace, actually. These electric bikes that are dockless that you can just pick up and drop everywhere. First of all, obviously, I very frequently find as a pedestrian that they are blocking a pavement. Now, I am lucky enough to be able to walk around that, but say you have a wheelchair or a push chair, that means.
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B
And you're lucky enough to be able to see that they're there, which is.
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A
Yes, quite exactly. But obviously they're a great hazard for many people. But also there's been some very interesting reporting started. I want to credit the brilliant London website, London Centric. But it's been picked up in a lot of places that actually line bikes seem. There is a suggestion from doctors that they seem to be causing much worse injuries than many other bikes because of the structure with a sort of central, very heavy pole that should you be pushed off it, it's a much heavier weight that will fall on your legs. So lots of really, really nasty broken legs, really quite serious injuries, you know, for riders and pedestrians and not, you know, obviously we have all seen people indeed, who perhaps have had a little too much alcohol or whatever like that. But actually, you know, of course, this can happen to anyone in London, you know, perfectly innocently riding around that you could get caught in an accident. And I actually think I'm quite in sympathy with some boroughs who've banned them. They actually stop working if you try to drive over the border of the borough. So there are Lots abandoned around the edge of it. Yeah, they literally do.
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B
They come to just like a sudden stop, even from speed. And. And are the places where that happens advertised so you can take. So you can pull up a deck chair and a furnace of coffee and. And watch them sail over their handlebars?
- [27:31]
A
This you will have to Google for yourself.
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B
That's an evening out. All jokes aside, Phil, would we say there's. To any new innovation? There are benefits and drawbacks to everything. And to be clear, I think it is good, by and large, if people are cycling for all the reasons that people say cycling is good. You know, it emits. No. And it's good for health, it saves car journeys and I get all that. I do. But there are drawbacks to everything. And the drawback with this, in every city that Lyme has been turned loose, that being a pedestrian just trying to walk around has become increasingly unpleasant at best, dangerous at worst?
- [28:13]
C
Yeah. I mean, I cycled in London for 20 years. I don't now because of where I live, but I cycled for a very long time. I've also been hit by a cyclist as a pedestrian. I had a door open into my back. I was on crutches for six weeks. I'm very pleased that my wife had advised me to start wearing a helmet, please, just before that. You know, so I've been, you know, in the midst of this. I mean, I think actually one of the most. The most egregious thing this is the equivalent of playing your music without headphones on the tube, but worse is cycling on the pavement. I have lost count the number of times I've, you know, called people out on this. I believe it is actually illegal under the 1970s highway sex, as I love to point out to people, which always goes down really well. But no, I do.
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B
I have noticed that cyclists are always very ready to thank you for your constructive input into their behaviour and sometimes.
- [28:58]
C
Take out a pencil and make a note. But no, I do think that cycling anyway can either be, as you say, absolutely fantastic and is much better and it doesn't kill people. We wouldn't have road deaths and so on. Obviously, there are many, many advantages to it. It just requires you to behave properly. But also, there is a separate issue, I think, with the lime bike thing, which reminds me more of what's happened with Airbnb or Uber, which is this very, very Silicon Valley thing, particular variable, and just focusing on that and sort of optimizing that and by counting everything else out, like the experience for pedestrians, experience for people, sightless people experience for young mums and pushchairs, et cetera. You can make something that looks like very sort of, you know, progressive and lovely and environmentally marvelous and give it a nice green color. And it's, it's a good business proposition. But it's a kind of way of thinking that Silicon Valley really needs to be called out on because it is making our lives worse, as you say.
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B
Because on that front, Alex, this is, and we see this in all sorts of tech innovations, this is technology outrunning anybody else's ability, or indeed, in the case of the, I think, police in a lot of cities, willingness to actually regulate it.
- [30:05]
A
Yes, I mean, it's very, you know, this seems to just sort of happen and then the regulation very much comes after the fact. Quite often when these companies face significant legal consequences for what has happened as a result of their product. You know, this now seems to be the way of things. But of course, that's not brilliant news for those of you affected. I mean, I should say, I do think, generally speaking, cycling's a marvellous thing, but I think these extremely heavy, very fast bikes with nowhere to put them at the beginning and end of a trip do pose quite particular dangers, which make them much, much more hazardous to everybody else than the standard. You know, we've had many rental bikes in London, most of which don't really cause that big a problem.
- [30:44]
B
Rip our mentions. Alex von Tuntleman and Phil Tinline, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, as the founder of London, brat and mountain chef Thomas Parry has helped shape the capital's food scene, creating the kind of restaurants that people already consider contemporary dining institutions. Fresh from a run of special event dinners in a rural patch of his native Wales, Parry came to Midori House to talk about the memories and influences that run into his cuisine. Cooking on fire, the Basque way is integral to his cooking. But it turns out that there are more parallels between the Spanish and Welsh coasts than might initially meet the eye, as Monocle's Chiara Romella fight turns out.
- [31:25]
D
So I have this kind of Celtic connection to home, but a lot of my cuisine is influenced by northern Spain. So you have the Catalonia and the Basque country, which I have been to many, many times, traveled extensively there, cooked their source from there, eaten there. For me, it's. There's a connection between Wales and those areas, mainly because they have their own language. The terrain is quite similar. I just feel quite at home there for many, many reasons. So for me, I'm trying to use that kind of approach of the Basque people have to their produce, but using Welsh ingredients. And I just don't think they're celebrated enough in Wales. So I just. When I got the opportunity to go there, I really took it.
- [32:10]
E
What do you like about eating in Wales? I just kind of want to go back not only to your childhood memories of Anglesey and what you felt like, like eating was like back then, but also when you do go back to Wales now, what do you picture in your head in terms of the quintessential dishes that really represent it for you?
- [32:29]
D
Well, the name of one of my restaurants is Mountain, right? So it's called Mountain because it's a kind of homage to where I grew up. I grew up next to the seas and the mountains. So all the dishes were either fresh mackerel grilled or fresh oysters and mussels from the sea, but also stews and this kind of hearty dishes that you. You get from the mountain rural areas. So for me, when I go back to Wales, it's just dishes are steeped in nostalgia. So I'm so excited when I show some of my team these dishes. So I. We got some fresh mackerel, grilled it simply in the barbecues. And also we kind of collected our own seaweeds. We brazed that and make dishes out of seaweeds, which are abundant back home. But growing up since. Since I was. Well, since I can remember, I just. We just used to fish all the time. That was kind of what you did. So, I mean, I'm sure you've been to, you know, many British seaside and you just have that distinct smell of British seaside town. It kind of grounds me and it reinspires me. So the produce is beautiful, the seas are clean. The sea around Pembrokeshire is kind of certified grade A, so this is kind of one of the nicest seas anywhere. So all the produce coming from that ocean, just so full of goodness. And the flavour is incredible.
- [33:47]
E
What originally attracted you to cooking on fire, though? Because so far we've talked about the ocean and the sea breeze, but where does the fire come into the equation? And how did you discover such a kind of profound passion for it?
- [34:01]
D
So through my cooking career. So I started in like most chefs start, they start in kind of classical French kitchens, essentially. So you learn a lot about process, about techniques, which is really, really important. I think it's. To build those fundamental blocks is really, really important. But I kept cooking and worked in different places, but I was always drawn back to this elemental way of cooking over fire. And I Couldn't really understand why for a while because I was a bit like, why. Why am I always drawn towards this? But obviously I grew up doing this, like every weekend, all the time. It was completely normal for us to cook over fire. You know, not in our house so much, but let's say on the beach, in the mountains. It was completely normal for us to grill. I'd never thought about it too much until I moved to London and I met lots of other people who would. Never had a chance to do this, grew up in the city or whatever. So for me it was, yeah, completely normal to do this. So therefore, when I came to open my own restaurants, which I luckily was able to. To do, I knew that I wanted to focus on fire one because of flavor. And unlike the kind of there's a theater to it, there's a human element to cooking over fire, but also because it connects me to where I'm from. Because the smells of fish and fire or meat or vegetables on fire just transport me home. So I'm kind of. If I'm doing something that connects me, I feel like I can do it well, if that makes sense.
- [35:30]
E
It's amazing because having been numerous times to all of the iterations of your restaurants, Brat, Kimson's, Arch and Mountain, they're all amazing restaurants. They're all quite urban restaurants in many ways. Like, I don't think that when you step into the room, you necessarily have this vision of the Anglesey coast. Do you think that this forest residency kind of points towards a desire from you to kind of bring the restaurant closer also to the landscape? Or do you think you're wedded to the kind of.
- [36:00]
A
Of the.
- [36:00]
E
The city perch? Or what does the sort of like a potential future iteration look like for you in terms of locations, in terms of where you're drawn to?
- [36:09]
D
Yeah, that's. That's a really good question and good point, because I always. I'm always thinking about this because I'm. I think to myself, why am I creating, trying to kind of bring Wales or bring the countryside into the city? But why don't I just go to the country? But I absolutely love the hustle, the bustle, the diversity of London. I love working with people from across the world. And I also love, I don't know, giving that moment. When you step into my restaurants, I feel like, yes, they're quite urban, but because they're open kitchens, you kind of see the fires. And I think there's something quite comforting about that. And giving people who live in London or are visiting that little moment of escapism through that cooking, I think is quite a special thing for me. I feel like I'm transporting, transported to a different place when I smell the smoke or see it or taste it, and it just gives me a real excitement and a buzz to feel that I brought a little bit of the country into a hustle and bustle of the city. And I don't see myself creating anything outside of London in the near future. But I do think it's important that I expose the team and, and the people around me to where it comes from, because I talk about it a lot, but to see it, it makes a lot more sense to them.
- [37:34]
B
That was Thomas Parry speaking to Chiara Romella. And that is all for this edition of the Daily. A big thanks to our panelists today, Alex von Tunzelman and Phil Tinlein. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Christy o'. Grady. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
- [38:17]
A
Sam.