While the algae blooms, the sand dunes have been washed away in winter storms, and the Normanville jetty is looking decidedly shabby, since the end collapsed into the sea, the latest offering from Aqua Blue has certainly lifted our spirits. Aqua Blue has been opened a little over eighteen months, and is already a firm favourite with locals and visitors alike. On the first floor of the new Surf Lifesaving Club, the restaurant overlooks the sea and a long stretch of Normanville beach, where you can drop in for breakfast or lunch, enjoy an evening cocktail, or a sunset dinner.
This month, as part of the Fleurieu Food Festival, Aqua Blue is hosting a Seafood Boil every Friday evening. For those of you – like me – who have never experienced a Seafood Boil, here’s a short explanation. Originating along the coast of the southern states of the USA, a Seafood Boil is a communal meal in which a variety of seafood, vegetables, and sausages are cooked together in a large pot of seasoned water, to be shared and eaten in a festive, fingers-only family-style setting.
Friends from Adelaide picked up on it faster than we did and came down to stay for a weekend of wine and seafood. And this communal dining experience proved to be a bundle of fun. Even before the food arrived, we were making friends at the long table swathed in somewhat lumpy black tablecloths. (An explanation of this strange condition will follow later).
Our knowledgeable friend ordered a bottle of Golding’s “La Francesca” Savagnin 2022, a crisp fresh white we had not met before. All the way from the foot of the Jura mountains in France, abutting the south western corner of Switzerland, this white wine grape has a quietly floral and citrusy profile, that promised to go well with seafood, And while the grape originated in France, it has found a happy home in the cool climate regions of Tasmania, the Yarra Valley and the Adelaide Hills.
Savagnin seems to have arrived in Australia by mistake. Apparently, someone thought it was a Spanish grape that was popular at the time – to the dismay of growers who didn’t realize their error until they were ready to make their first batch of Albariño wine, in the late twentieth century, never having heard of this green skinned variation of the Traminer grape. Luckily, despite its rocky start, Savagnin has begun to make its mark, and there are now some eighty vineyards in Australia producing wine from this late-ripening, low-yielding grape.
Later, one bottle down, we ordered a bottle of Vermentino from Chalk Hill Winery in McLaren Vale, a variety we discovered with glee in Sardinia last year, which, like Savagnin, has a similar profile to Sauvignon Blanc, typically exhibiting notes of lime, grapefruit and green apple, with a distinctive salty or sea-spray character. And less grassiness. It proved an even better match with our seafood dinner.
So, enough about the wine. Let’s talk about the seafood. Seated comfortably at our long table, we were keen to start feasting. But first our host handed out given full bib striped aprons and encouraged us to introduce ourselves to our neighbours. Then we were presented with a delicious amuse bouche: a beautifully cooked scallop in its shell. Just one each, unfortunately, as we all agreed we could happily have devoured a plateful. However, there was more to come, and the presentation of our eagerly anticipated dinner proved to be quite a performance.
A team arrived from the kitchen with much pomp and circumstance and proceeded to pour the contents of two huge pots across our make-shift table, having first removed the black tablecloths. This revealed layers of plastic wrap and paper beneath, as well as a slight ridge formed by rolled tea towels to prevent anything slopping over the edges.
As we gasped at the mountain of seafood, the contents of a third pot full of Cajun garlic butter was poured over the top of Moreton Bay bugs, soft shell crabs, huge prawns, New Zealand green-lipped mussels and our own blue mussels, as well as chunks of smoky chorizo, boiled potatoes, and sweet corn. I have never been a huge fan of chorizo, but nor have I had it cooked liked this, and it proved a most enlightening and flavourful experience. And while I was a tad nervous about the texture of the soft shell crab, the flavour was HUGE.
Our host encouraged us to stand and wander as we ate, to ameliorate the opportunities of meeting our fellow diners. Without the bondage of knives, forks and plates, this was no sooner said than done. Picking and dipping, we thoroughly enjoyed the food and the company, quickly making inroads into the hearty mounds of crustaceans and molluscs. And yet, despite a dozen very healthy appetites, there was a surprising amount left over. To our joy, we were encouraged to take home as much as we could carry, and I am here to report that our hoard was converted into a delicious spaghetti marinara for lunch the following day. We also went home with the contact details of some of our new friends!
Although you may have missed the opportunity to join a table before the end of this year’s food festival, we are assured that this may well become a signature event for Aqua Blue. So, if you would like to participate at a later date, keep an eye on their Facebook page. I can absolutely recommend it; it will be well worth the wait.