The new Torquay restaurant where printed menus and cling film are banned

Torquay restaurant Samesyn has reopened after a nine-month transformation, going from fine diner to a profit-for-purpose outfit. The food is no less refined, but it’s now underscored by an ambitious ethical mission: to feed more people while wasting less food.

Samesyn achieves the first part by donating profits to Feed Me Surf Coast, a local charity preparing 7000 meals a week for those in need. The plot twist is that Feed Me is also bringing food to Samesyn.

But not just any food. It’s the pallet of shiitake mushrooms that a supermarket thought it wanted but can no longer sell, or the plums that are blemished but make a delicious preserve to go with pâté. Diverting perfectly edible food from landfill is something many charities do, addressing two problems (hunger and waste) in one go.

“We’re certainly not feeding guests food out of the bin. The food we repurpose is as good as anything you’d buy.”

Graham Jefferies

Restaurants, however, seldom take this path. After seeing the quality of food being rejected by powerful players in the food system, Samesyn owner-chef Graham Jefferies wanted to address the problem by cooking to the same standard he always has (the restaurant was awarded a hat in The Age Good Food Guide 2023) but using produce from a different source.

“We’re certainly not feeding guests food out of the bin,” says Jefferies. “The food we repurpose is as good as anything you’d buy.”

Samesyn pickles or preserves most of the Feed Me produce, using it on menus down the track to enhance Great Ocean duck, rare-breed pork from Barangarook and locally grown vegetables.

Every dish on the new menu includes an element that is often wasted or discarded. The steak is retired dairy cow beef, a growing industry now that people are appreciating the deeper flavour. The often-wasted “oyster” of a chicken (a small coin of meat between the back and the thigh) is turned into a skewer, with the playfulness dialled up by adding an oyster mushroom and a scattering of oyster powder.

Vegetables play a starring role. Beet tartare subs out the meat and uses knobbly beetroots that are dehydrated and, once they’re put through a mincer, look and taste quite meaty, especially with the addition of smoked eel.

When Jefferies began spending time with Feed Me and seeing how many people in his local community needed help to feed themselves each week, he started thinking about how his restaurant fitted into the wider food system. Samesyn 2.0 is the ambitious result. But he thinks the gamble will be worth it.

“I think people are more inclined to go to a restaurant where the experience helps others,” he says.

The final part of the puzzle is the restaurant’s environmental footprint.

Diners won’t know it, but Samesyn has removed its general waste bin where things like sticky tape and plastic wrap normally land, forcing the kitchen to work without these things. A more noticeable change is the menu: it’s no longer printed. Instead, there’s a wooden menu board and, for more detail, an online version via QR code.

The 28-seater, which opened in late 2019, has been redecorated in warm green and rust tones, and the kitchen has been completely opened up to the dining room, so that Jefferies and his team of three chefs also double as the waitstaff.

Open Sat noon-2.30pm; Tue-Sat5.30pm-8.30pm.

Shop 3, 24 Bell Street, Torquay, 0482 560 776, samesyn.com.au