Durban eateries are shaking things up with retro-inspired gourmet milkshakes

Chocolate, vanilla, lime, and bubble gum – these are words that can denote some of the most uninspired and synthetic flavour fallbacks for milkshakes that have been prolific for decades. Fortunately, there’s recently been a welcome wave of home-made, retro-inspired gourmet shakes flooding menus and mouths across the Durban.

First stop on the milkshake map is South Beach’s Surf Riders. An original 1970s soft-serve machine sits in the back and churns out the base ingredient that inspired Brendon Newport, the owner, to start concocting some creative milkshake combinations. “The machine was too old and dented to use front of house, but we decided to keep it in the back room and create an amazing variety of ’70s inspired milkshakes made from everyone’s old-school favourite: vanilla soft serve,” says Brendon.

Imaginative flavours such as salted caramel and honeycomb milkshake, topped with vanilla soft serve and garnished with caramel popcorn and spearmint, need to be poured into everyone’s bucket list. Also notable is the signature wild berry and yoghurt soft serve milkshake, topped with a hot-flamed rum meringue.

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Ebb & Flo in Gateway is run by the same team as Surf Riders, so their shakes should make you want to roll up, rattle down their door and grab a tall glass of double 70% cocoa chocolate and Bar-One milkshake that comes topped with wild berries, mint and meringue, or the classic peanut butter and banana, sprinkled with roasted peanuts.

Parc Café in Glenwood needs to be the next stop. Their Free’s Shake is legendary: named after the customer who requested it, this avocado-vanilla combination includes a double shot of rooibos red espresso and is blended with a home-made chocolate brownie. Further varieties of unusual and inspired mixes are on offer and they’re all made with locally produced ice cream.

In Durban North the Ferrero Rocher shake at Union Square beats any regular chocolate flavour, while Rocomamas down the road has a Cherry Cola flavour that must be tried. The milk tart milkshake at O&O Café Westville also deserves an honourable mention.

This article was originally published in Sunday Times Neighbourhood: Durban. Visit yourneighbourhood.co.za, like YourNeighbourhoodZA on Facebook and follow YourHoodZA on Twitter