Tom Moore is a co-founder of the iconic Victoria bakery, Crust and is now also the proud owner of his new passion project, Tombo Eats.
Despite being one of the busiest people in the city amidst the pandemic and getting his new restaurant open, Moore has somehow also found the time to put proverbial pen to paper and write his first-ever cookbook, Crust.
Moore says he began working on his debut cookbook around three years ago as Crust was opening its Uptown Shopping Centre kiosk and his role was becoming a bit more hands-off and administrational.
“I thought, oh my god, this is the perfect opportunity to fulfill my dream of having a cookbook and it doesn’t come along very often, so I thought I have to jump on this while I can,” Moore told Victoria Buzz.
Moore then had his sights set on making his dream come true and set up a meeting with local photographer and food connoisseur, Rebecca Wellman to help him get started in this journey.
Wellman would later end up as a co-author along with Moore and took several of the photos for Crust.
“I realized I can cook and I can write recipes, but putting it together as a book takes a skillset and [Wellman] is certainly the person with that,” Moore explained.
“She luckily said yes and away we went.”
Moore says that in terms of food, he wanted to really showcase Crust Bakery and all the recipes he has developed for that spot over the 13 years it has been open in Victoria.
He and Wellman decided on 100 recipes to be included and then had to whittle that down even further to the 85 which will be included in Crust.
In addition to including some of the top-sellers at Crust Bakery, Moore said he also wanted to make it approachable for a home cook and include some recipes that were inspired by those closest to him.
“The book itself has become, or sort of morphed into, the story of me, of my cooking career,” said Moore.
“How I came up with these things, my childhood memories of making things with my mom, baking with my siblings, when I was an apprentice… all these sort of stories are throughout the book and it was a real trip down memory lane for me when I started thinking about where I’d learnt these things and who had touched my life over the years.”
He says there are even a few recipes in the book that were invented by his kids which became household staples and eventually were developed enough to make it into Crust Bakery and Tombo’s shelves.
“Even my older brother who is an amazing cook… he cooks like a demon and he came up with this homestyle way of making sourdough bread,” Moore explained.
“It’s so brilliantly him, he is a very clever man and so he wrote it down and sent me the way he does it at home… It’s perfect at home.”
Moore says that in his debut book there are recipes for all levels of bakers—beginners, intermediate as well as people who are seeking a challenge in the kitchen.
Crust will be released on September 24th and will be available at most local bookstores, including Munro’s, Bolen Books and Russell Books. It will also be available at Crust Bakery and Tombo Eats once it has been officially released.
The book is also currently available for pre-order through Moore’s website.
Editor’s note: Tom Moore was originally named in this article as ‘co-owner’ of Crust, but we have since corrected it to ‘co-founder’.
