Silver Sands Beach Club is the local seaside you’ve been waiting for

After a brief stint in pop-up mode, Silver Sands Beach Club has launched its full offering, bringing coastal residents the full range – from beer, schnitzels, and salt and pepper squid to swordfish with beurre blanc and burgundy.

It was a lucky day for Nick Stock and Mark Kamleh two weeks ago when their Silver Sands Beach Club license approval finally came through.

“We’re so happy to feel like we’re here finally,” Nick says. “It’s great. And the people were so welcoming. The community was great.”

The catering space affiliated with the Aldinga Bay Surf Life Saving Club operated with limited capacity for five weeks before their full license came through. Still, they have now launched the restaurant in its proper form.

Menu design started early with Chef Annika Berlingieri and has since evolved with the addition of Chef Alessandro Gramazio, formerly of Herringbone.

Mark told CityMag in January that the Silver Sands Beach Club menu is designed with Mediterranean fare, pub-style classics, and “things you’ll want to eat when you’re facing the ocean,” he says.

That’s still true now that the restaurant is open, but the menu Annika and Ali created has also evolved into a “more bistro level of food,” explains Nick.

“In terms of menu, we started with the pub classics, and now we’ve moved to bistro style food, like pies where we make our cakes, make our cakes,” he says.

†[It’s] still very accessible and tasty, but it also has a different feel to standard pub fare.”

But, emphasizes Mark, ‘we still have fish and chips, schnitzels, salt and pepper squid. The classics are all still there.”

The menu has a “small snacks” section, with dishes between $4-$7; “small and shared,” from $12-$24, with a Sicilian-style shrimp cocktail roll and kingfish crudo; a short list of pizzas from $21-$24; and entrees ranging from $19-$29. There are also a few desserts, a baked ricotta cheesecake ($14) and a rum baba ($16).

Mark says the two most popular main dishes are the cheeseburger (“an absolute hit”) and the salt and pepper squid (“it eclipses every other dish on the menu”).

“This is kind of what we’ve always wanted to do, so have something ultra-accessible and then something that people who want to try something cool or different or unique, or a little spark plug, can serve as well,” says Mark. †

The wine offerings take a similar “two-speed” approach, Nick says.

“We want to have a good local offer,” he says.

“I think other restaurants around here are not necessarily involved in local [producers] as deep, perhaps, as the local public would expect.

“And then we have this other collection, which we find out there are a lot of wine people here who like to drink bottles from far away that excite and inspire them, so we have that other list of things too.”

“It fits our theme that we want something for everyone,” says Mark.

“If you just want to come and eat schnitzels and eat it for under $20, you can, but if you’re on vacation and want to eat some tasty fish while staring at the ocean, you can do that too.

“So we won’t judge you for having a schnitzel and a beer. We have most of that. It’s a melting pot of different things the kitchen loves to do.”

Branding by Peculiar Familia

Mark and Nick are also co-founders of the wine event company Wine Country, and they plan to bring many events to their Aldinga Beach location.

There will be regular quiz nights and the introduction of a McLaren Vale Spring Dozen event (alongside the Adelaide Hills original). They also plan to bring in food and wine producers from the area.

“As soon as the truffles are ready in July, we will put Lovely Valley Truffles on the menu here and eat Italian with Alessandro [with] truffles from the Myponga lunch event,” says Nick.

“We’re going to make some agnolotti pasta together in the morning, and then we’ll have Jayne [Jacques] drop by with the truffles from the day before.

“It’s linked to what’s local and relevant to something local, but it’s also just a ton of fun.”

Shrimp cocktail roll feat. Bread from Dickbuns

Silver Sands Beach Club is a new kind of partnership, bringing together professional hospitality entrepreneurs (as opposed to volunteers) and a local lifesaving surf club. Therefore, Mark and Nick are eager to maintain a close relationship with the club, which has resulted in a fair amount of recruiting.

“We have six kids from the surf club and two from the neighborhood,” says Mark.

“And they’re great,” Nick adds.

“Most of them, it’s their first job, and they… so willing will responsible elastic, and eager to learn things.

“It was pretty cool to learn about the lifesaving surf community, what they do, and the pride they work with. It’s great to be in that mix and to be able to support it.”

Silver Sands Beach Club is on the waterfront in front of the Aldinga Bay Surf Life Saving Club on Norman Road, Aldinga Beach, and is open Thursday through Sunday.

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