--- airs weeknights on SBS Food at 7.00pm and 10.30pm, or stream it free on . Catch Tom Walton in the 'hearty but healthy', 'vego isn't a flavour', and 'dirt: from the garden' episodes. ---
The Middle East is over 15,000 kilometres from childhood home in the Blue Mountains, but he grew up with "a piece of Lebanon" in his backyard. These Eastern Mediterranean flavours are signature to his plant-centric, fresh-produce style of cooking today.
"For the first 17 years of my life, I was basically immersed in Middle Eastern food," Walton explains. "My Lebanese neighbour, Nadeema Kostopoulos, was always in her garden, and from when I could walk, I was in there with her, playing and planting and cooking."
One of Walton's first lessons was learning to forage for and transform edible herbs into a simple meal. Wild thyme was dried in the shed and turned into fresh za'atar, and parsley and mint were finely chopped into tabbouleh. Other greens contributed to Nadeema's famous grass pies (fatayer bi sabanekh).
Tom's Lebanese neighbour and adopted grandma, Nadeema. Source: Supplied
For the first 17 years of my life, I was basically immersed in Middle Eastern food.
They'd find chicory and edible weeds, then they'd chop them up with onion and garlic. "Then we'd make a pastry, stretch it around all the greens and bake it off," Walton recalls.
On Sunday nights, Walton's family gathered to enjoy a feast with their neighbour. Hot chips cooked with olive oil were a staple and best enjoyed with Nadeema's fresh toum (garlic sauce).
Hummus, tahini and baba ghanoush were served alongside fattoush or tabouli and Lebanese bread, which was "used instead of a fork to pick up the food". For protein, Nadeema rotated between chickpea kibbeh, roast chicken stuffed with rice and pine nuts, or lamb skewers cooked over coal.
"That's how I think of a table when I make it up…it's 80 per cent plant based," Walton explains. "I do a massive salad, some vegetable dishes, maybe grilled, dips which I use as part of the meal." He'll include seafood and meat if people want.
Walton's veggie-centric approach to food is strongly influenced by the simplicity of Mediterranean cooking and its focus on herbs, spices and fresh ingredients.
"I like to take whole or simply prepared vegetables and then layer them up with a lot of sauces and flavours," he says. "I choose those techniques like grilling or high heat roasting that get maximum flavour out of food but with minimum fuss."
When Walton left his job as an executive chef to open Bondi's popular beachside eatery, , he finally put this food philosophy into practice. The menu was driven by seasonality and fresh produce, combining traditional Eastern Mediterranean dishes with a modern twist.
"There was always falafel, which was a massive selling dish, but I'd make it into a lovely, more modern salad," he says. "Or there'd be hummus, but it'd be underneath a piece of a nice grilled snapper."
Tom Walton embraces a diet rich with plants. Source: Supplied
Walton has done a full circle over the last two decades, leaving the industry as an executive chef to promote a more sustainable food system. His focus is on supporting local growers, farmers and producers, and embracing a diet that features more plants.
The simple plant-based recipes that Walton shares online are inspired by his love of health and nutrition, but also his understanding that food is a powerful tool to enrich the lives of others.
"To be able to nourish your family and your kids, even if it's making breakfast or having delicious things in the fridge that are healthy; it's a powerful tool to give to people as a gift every day," he says.
Walton is paying homage to the fresh and diverse flavours of Lebanese cooking in the cookbook that he's writing. Like Lebanese cuisine, each recipe is a celebration of life and the people who helped him along the way.
Images supplied by Tom Walton
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