What kind of kitchen equipment would you expect Damien Neylon, ex-head chef of three-hat Brae, to bring into his new city kitchen? Tweezers in every size? A swanky induction cooktop? How about an on-trend wood-burning hearth? No. None of those make the kit list at Parcs, the waste-watching wine bar on Little Collins Street, which will reopen after a three-month hiatus on October 17.

“I’m getting an air fryer,” says Neylon.

The only built-in equipment at 20-seat Parcs is a wok burner. It joins a single benchtop hot plate and a tiny hibachi grill.

“We’ll use the air fryer to bake and heat things up. They’re actually really versatile,” says Neylon. “It’s all about being creative.”

That creativity isn’t just about limited equipment; it’s also about the choice of ingredients.

“We are continuing the previous iteration of Parcs with the ethos of addressing food systems, whether it be waste, sustainability or organics,” says Neylon. “The blemished apple, the wilted celery, the pak choi stem – we’ll take all that and avoid it going straight to the bin. I’m trying to highlight an approach to sustainable eating and make it fun as well.”

Parcs (it’s “scrap” spelt backwards) is part of the Windsor Melbourne group and Neylon also works at Hotel Windsor, where he’s built a rooftop garden with plantings in polystyrene boxes that he rescued from nearby restaurants.

The menu at Parcs will use rooftop vegetables, as well as discarded items from the hotel and the group’s other venues, which include new bakery-kitchen Antara 128. Afternoon a la carte snacks will give way to a five-course menu ($95) from 6pm.

“Our pickles plate includes unwanted trim that we’ve salvaged, carrots we buried in miso, pine cones, trofie onions that had a weird skin colour, blemished mandarins that we marinated,” he says.

For another dish, albacore tuna is brushed with a kombucha made from coffee grounds. “It’s served with a mushroom sauce that comes from afternoon tea at the Windsor: there’s lots of juice that comes out of mushrooms and we reduce it down.”

Restaurant manager Shahkeal Holdsworth (also ex-Brae) is tying into the theme with an annotated drinks list that allows diners to pick out regenerative, biodynamic, organic and “hand and hoof” (mechanisation-free) beverages.

In-house options include an artichoke liqueur and a pu’er-style tea made with fermented broad bean leaves that have been pressed into a dried cake using a cider press. “Broad bean growers trim the tops of their plants to promote new growth, so it’s good to take the leaves for this other application,” says Neylon. The tea will be poured alongside a dish of chrysanthemum custard, rooster broth and grilled broad beans.

Born in Hamilton in western Victoria, chef Neylon built his career under industry leader Dan Hunter for 16 years, first at the Royal Mail in Dunkeld, then at Brae in Birregurra. He had never lived in the city before moving to Melbourne a year ago and found himself shocked by the waste he was suddenly witness to every day.

“Coming from a small town and a niche restaurant that was hyper-seasonal and sustainable, the city was crazy, a real wake-up call,” says Neylon.

Parcs is a creative outlet but it’s also a response. “We know we’re not going to change the world here but hopefully, it will be a nice way to start a dialogue.”

Open Tue-Sat 4pm-late (from October 17).

198 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, 03 9972 7015, parcs.com.au