“The sun is up, and the early morning swimmers are trudging up the beach, damp and dripping, to gather for coffee on the veranda at the Normanville Kiosk & Café. In dribs and drabs, the dawn patrol of dog walkers wander in. Later, as the sea begins to glitter in the morning sun, a stream of beach walkers from Carrickalinga arrive. By ten o’clock, the café is awash with swimmers, walkers, families, and exhausted puppies dozing under the tables.”
I wrote this introduction almost two years ago, in a piece about our beachside café/restaurant at Normanville. Today, the building is shiny and new, but little else has changed. The sun comes up over the hills and sets into the sea. Those early morning swimmers have not interrupted their daily routine. The dawn patrol of dog walkers still gathers at the kiosk – albeit in a new format to the one of two years ago. Beach patrols can be found on the sand every weekend and public holiday in the summer, between November 2023 and Easter Monday. On Saturday afternoon, the Nippers (aged 5 to 13) are still training to become fully fledged life savers And the new life saving club opened on December 22nd, 2023 and will be open from Wednesdays through Sundays. They do not take bookings, but already, the club is a popular spot for drop-ins looking for a drink or a simple meal.
Next door, Kenton Day has come down from the hilltop at Forktree Brewing to organize the restaurant Aqua Blue. Like its neighbour, the Surf Lifesaving Club, Aqua Blue has a broad balcony and a superb view over the beach and along the coastline. Kenton’s menu is more varied than the Burger- or fish-and-chips style next door, the prices are a little higher, and the atmosphere is a little calmer. Usually. There is also a great array of local Fleurieu Gin (FG), the cellar door and distillery located just up the road beyond Forktree Brewing. And I am on a mission to try them all this summer.
Ice cream, take-away snacks, even beer and wine are available at ground level, where no dress code prevents you from wandering up from the beach in bathers to grab a coffee or a bag of chips. Upstairs, the general tone of informality persists, but there is carpet on the floor and more comfortable seating.
Despite the glamour of the new building and the children’s playground at the other end of the carpark, this is still a bucket-and-spade beach for young families, in a sea of gentle surf where the littlies can learn to swim. Despite all the local concerns that this posh new construction would change the flavour of our traditional, down-to-earth demographic, it seems nothing much has changed – or not for the worse anyway. Maybe the council listened, and maybe it didn’t, but the rumours that the kiosk would move inaccessibly upstairs has not eventuated. The kiosk is open from dawn till dusk, and there is still plenty of seating around the lawn – albeit on a ridiculously windy corner this summer. And there is also a good sized lift to get upstairs.
We were fortunate enough to go to the soft opening for Aqua Blue a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to delays in completing the building, it was late in the day to be having a dress rehearsal, the beach already thick with Christmas holiday makers. But the staff did their utmost to make it happen, in the last moments before the official opening on December 23rd.
A soft opening is a chance to set up a practice run for the staff, to make sure everything is functioning properly, and to iron out any major kinks. It also gives the guests an opportunity to provide constructive criticism from their point of view, and to spread the word. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre. The soft opening came only 24 hours before the Grand Opening, which didn’t give Kenton and his staff much breathing space. Yet, despite a few minor glitches, and a foreshortened menu, they did well. And we, the guests, were all behind them, enthusiastically barracking for their success, and providing as much feedback as possible.
Last weekend, I went down again, with my parents and neighbours. A fortnight later, and things were already much improved and running more smoothly. The tables, initially too tightly packed for staff to navigate easily, have been spaced out a little, the staff look more secure in their new surroundings and the full menu was in evidence, expanded from the trial run of only four dishes. Whereas Forktree Brewing has an Asian flavour, at Aqua Blue, Kenton has leaned towards more Mediterranean inspired dishes, and plenty of seafood. The entrees include three tapas options and three pintxos – a new word to me, a Spanish one, meaning small snacks on a piece of bread, often held in place on by a toothpick. (Apparently, ‘pintxo’ – or ‘pincho’ – means “spike,” hence the toothpick.)
For their main course, Mum and Dad both ordered the slow-cooked Greek lamb, which they thought was terrific, while my neighbours shared a generous and varied seafood platter. I chose the Moroccan vegetarian tagine, which might have been lacking the traditional couscous, but was still very tasty, and proved to be a hearty and warming dish on a cooler-than-normal summer evening. As a finale, we all shared a couple of deliciously creamy panna cotta with a sprinkling of crunchy honeycomb. There are child friendly options at all three venues.
Glam Adelaide claims $7 million was spent on the rebuild of the Lifesaving Club. Was it worth it? The foreshore has certainly been upgraded in the past couple of years. And when those twiggy little trees start to fill out, they will provide some welcome shade to the expanse of concrete. In a town with only a small handful of restaurants and cafes, but a large population of summer visitors, it is good to have three new and tasty options in one lovely location on the seafront.