BRAT Restaurant - 16mm documentary
BRAT Restaurant
16mm documentary
A short documentary about fire, landscape and the people behind one of London’s most distinctive restaurants.
BRAT is Michelin-starred chef Tomos Parry’s restaurant in Shoreditch, rooted in the cooking traditions of the Basque Country and his own connection to Wales.
Rather than making a traditional restaurant promo, we set out to tell the story behind the food. Tomos’s relationship with the fishermen, farmers and growers who supply BRAT, the landscapes those ingredients come from, and the elemental process of cooking over fire.
Looking to tell your restaurant’s story?
I make cinematic short documentaries for restaurants, chefs, growers and hospitality brands.
“It was filmed and directed by the hugely talented & brilliant James Dougan.”
- Tomos Parry, Michelin-star chef and owner of BRAT, London
The Story
At the heart of BRAT is a relationship between chef, ingredient and place.
Tomos sees the food served at the restaurant as a continuation of the work already being done by the farmers, fishermen, growers and foragers around him. So rather than keeping the film inside the restaurant, we followed that story back to its source.
From lobster fishermen on the coast of North Wales to growers in Cambridgeshire and the open-fire kitchen in Shoreditch, the film connects the finished plate with the people and landscapes behind it.
Creative Approach
We shot the film on 16mm to give it a tactile, imperfect quality that felt right for BRAT.
The grain, movement and texture of analogue film mirrored the restaurant itself. Fire, smoke, hands, ingredients and landscapes were captured observationally, allowing real moments to lead rather than staging everything for camera.
The aim was never to make BRAT look like an advert.
It was to make a short documentary that felt like BRAT.
From Wales to Shoreditch
The production took us across three distinct environments.
In North Wales, we joined lobster fishermen at sea and followed Tomos foraging for wild mushrooms. In Cambridgeshire, we filmed with Flourish, BRAT’s vegetable supplier, capturing the farm, the people behind the produce, and a large outdoor dinner surrounded by the ingredients being grown there.
From sea to soil, the film followed the relationships and landscapes behind the food at BRAT.
Sea. Soil. Fire. Plate.
Everything connected.
More than a restaurant film
BRAT premiered at the Raíz Culinaria culinary congress in Spain in 2022, as part of its Borderless: History & Heritage programme exploring connections between Wales and the Basque Country.
A film like this gives you the space to tell the wider story behind the restaurant, not just what ends up on the plate.
The people. The suppliers. The landscape. The work that goes into it.
That’s often where the real story is..
There’s usually a bigger story behind the plate.
I make cinematic short documentaries for restaurants, chefs, growers and hospitality brands, built around the real people and craft behind what they do.
If you’ve got a story you think could make a great film, I’d love to hear about it.
Just a quick conversation about what you’re doing and whether there’s a film in it.
Prefer an email? info@jamesdougan.com