With its cheery yellow facade, delicate white curtains and warm interior, Arnold’s is a model neighbourhood restaurant. Owners Scott Eddington and Lauren Chibert opened the place as much out of necessity as anything, after moving to the neighbourhood themselves.

Eddington was previously head chef at Mamasita, where he developed a love for Mexican flavours and ingredients, which has carried through into his food at Arnold’s. But the menu isn’t Mexican. Rather, it’s take elements of Mexican cooking and reinterprets them through a local lens.

The changing menu might include King George whiting with manchamantelesa, a sweet slow-cooked Oaxacan mole usually made with pineapples, bananas and guajillo chillies. Or maybe a chilli, tamarind and pomegranate-glazed Otway pork chop with walnut cream inspired by chiles en nogada (a pork-stuffed pepper with similar toppings, created to look like the Mexican flag). For dessert, expect the likes of orange and chipotle flan, or Mexican cacao tiramisu.

Manze owner Nagesh Seethiah wrote the versatile wine list. There are 30 to 40 bottles at any given time and always be something from Eddington’s home region of Gippsland.