Scott Eddington has been cheffing around Melbourne and Sydney for 20 years, including stints at Automata, A1 Canteen and, more recently, Mauritian restaurant Manze and the Mulberry Group’s cafes. He’s now opened his first venue, Arnold’s, a deeply personal endeavour named after his playful and adventurous granddad.

“He was funny, he was quirky … he wanted to see the world and bring people around,” says Eddington. It’s a sensibility felt in his new Kensington wine bar.

What’s the vibe?

Eddington, his partner Lauren Chibert, and their friends and relatives transformed a former burger bar into a light, bright and laid-back space with its original terrazzo flooring, warm orange and yellow hues and cosy bistro curtains (sewed by Chibert’s mum, who also made the staff aprons). It’s a family affair and the result is somewhere you’ll feel right at home.

What to eat

Eddington’s border-hopping menu is big on flavour and low on the usual wine-bar suspects. “I have a lot of background running Mexican restaurants with big, vibrant, spicy food, lots of lemon and acid, and I love that kind of food – food with energy.”

Cue: Otway pork chop rubbed with sweet and smoky mulato chilli, brushed with sticky pomegranate molasses and served with creamy walnut sauce, in a riff on chiles en nogada, Mexico’s famous flag-coloured dish.

Or Long Jetty Seafood flathead ceviche in a bright dressing of achiote paste, ginger and vinegar, with blood orange.

For something snacky, there’s cassava fritters (the root vegetable is cooked down in coconut milk with pepper leaf and pickled chillies) and bastilla (a sweet and savoury North African pie) filled with tender lamb barbacoa, cinnamon and allspice.

What to drink

The wine list, designed by Manze owner-chef Nagesh Seethiah, hones in on producers from Gippsland (where Eddington’s from) such as William Downey.

Spirits traverse the map, from Kensington’s Bakery Hill Distillery whisky to a herbaceous mezcal and smoky sotol from Mexico.

Cocktail drinkers have it easy with one choice, for now: a wet, briny green-tomato martini.

Where to sit

Park yourself in the centre of the action at the cork-tiled timber bar or nab a window seat looking out to tree-lined Bellair Street and Kensington train station, which could be your ticket home.

Our favourite details

A mosaic in the courtyard – the work of Eddington and his mum Sue – is a recreation of a watercolour landscape by Eddington’s granddad.

The original also hangs in the venue, alongside a stack of other personal items (“our house is empty now … it looks like we’ve been robbed”) including the kitchen island and glittering disco ball above it, and DJ decks spinning Sade, Nightmares on Wax, and Nigerian boogie and disco.

Open Thu-Fri 5pm-late, Sat noon-late, Sun noon-4pm

192 Bellair Street, Kensington, arnoldskensington.com