FUEL
with the fodder as the locals, whether it was
roasting hogs, medieval style, or watching
vans flogging steak hache in the streets.
“I started cooking aged 12 and read lots
of cookbooks. I love the alchemy.”
His wood merchant career began when
stripping bare his home in south-east
London and unearthing original fireplaces.
With a young family, he couldn’t afford to
put central heating in, so he started
chopping logs – lots and lots of them – in
the front garden.
Far from unnerving his neighbours as he
swung an axe in a Crystal Palace residential
area, they were fascinated and were soon
asking Parr to supply them.
“The best margins were on kindling wood.
We broke down pallets every Saturday”.
And so London Log Co was born 17
years ago and now woodshed HQ is in
Bermondsey, with an axe appropriately
built into the logo.
Wood branched out to charcoal and
nine years ago Parr started supplying to
restaurants, literally fuelling the live fire
cooking that is igniting the culinary scene in
London and beyond.
The restaurant work kicked off when Parr
was chatting with Lee Tiernan, then head
chef of St. John in Clerkenwell, now of Black
Axe Mangal in Highbury, north London.
“I come from a family of engineers. We
like to take things apart and I’d started to
turn old fridges into smokers and Lee was
an early client.”
Parr was a regular in St. John, lapping up
both the ambiance and the cooking
techniques and the printmaker learnt that
Tiernan had a tattoo of an ancient map of
Clerkenwell. No wonder they got on.
Parr then met another master of live fire
Tom Adams of Pitt Cue and word – and
wood – quickly spread.
If this all sounds rather fortuitous it
wasn’t. Parr studied the restaurant scene
forensically, watching how other suppliers –
be they butchers, fishmongers or market
gardeners – delivered their fresh produce to
confined spaces in busy streets. “I have a
fair collection of parking tickets!”
The logistics of logs is not straightforward,
but the principle is simple. Parr knew
wood was a vital ingredient with unique
characteristics, not just a fire-starter – be it
applewood for pork, silver birch for beef.
“Cooking is regional for a reason. History
tells us you use what is to hand. The vines
of Bordeaux, so vine wood for Entrecote
Bordelaise. You start on your own doorstep
and English food pulls on so many global
threads. That’s why [French chef Auguste]
Escoffier came to London.”
32 | Spring 2020 | BBQ
The rise of live-fire restaurants and
outdoor cooking at home means anyone
from the enthusiastic amateur through to
geeks and hall of flamers look to embrace
the right fuel, complementing flavours,
adding aromas, for live fire is nothing
without smoke – the purity of smoke as an
origin of cooking.
Parr says sustainability in terms of charcoal
production and woodland management
should be a given, not to mention treading
with a light carbon footprint.
“You should only harvest what you can
maintain. Cropping programmes, species,
volume and traceability are all so important.”
As a rule of thumb 100% of wood will
create 25% of charcoal. Parr will source his
timber locally, identifying densities and burn
values, curing and seasoning and insisting
on knowing the provenance of every log.
Parr exudes Englishness in so many ways,
but embraces live fire cooking and fuel from
around the world.
He’d kill for Billy Durney’s smoked ribs
from Home Town barbecue in Brooklyn;