Visual Bornholm
Published by Visual Media ApS
Designed by Miru Studio
By the tall smokehouse chimney at the small harbor in Sandvig lies Kalas-Kalas.
At a distance, it doesn’t appear to be a particularly special place… you need to take a closer look…
The small harbour in Sandvig has livened up during the past couple of years. In the summer of 2015, Christina and Christian opened a café serving their own homemade ice cream which has attracted a good number of people to the harbor area. The café, Kalas-Kalas, is located in a former refrigerated warehouse on the southernmost part of the harbour – surrounded by rocky coastline and with direct access to the sea.
Kalas-Kalas has a lot of repeat customers. Locals and tourists alike frequently come back to enjoy the homemade ice cream and coffee. The ice cream is made from locally produced milk and raw materials, such as elderberry flower from the family’s own garden as well as other gardens in Sandvig. Blueberries are collected at Slotslyngen and strawberries, raspberries, red currant or rhubarb are supplied by Mamrelund’s small family garden a few kilometres away.
Their cherry sherbet and classic variants of ice cream are made from locally produced milk. Their vegan ice cream recipes are packed with locally grown elderberry flower, rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, black currant, red currant, blackberries, blueberries, plums, apples, beets, cucumbers and cherries.
There is something special about this place. Even when the café is full of guests, there is still a calm and peaceful atmosphere. You feel at home. Perhaps because Christina and Christian’s three sons also work there during the summer, lending a sense of family to the place. Not surprisingly, numerous bloggers and magazines have written about the ice cream, the coffee and the distinctive ambience at Kalas-Kalas.
At Kalas-Kalas, you have a magnificent view of the Baltic Sea and Hammerknuden – through the glass doors of the café and from the café’s terrasse, which extends all the way to the water in a series of steps wide enough to sit on. Sitting at the bottom step of the stairs to the terrasse, you can sometimes dip your toes in the water. This is a place where your body can find rest – on a quiet summer morning with mirror calm water or during stormy fall weather where the ocean roars with white-crested waves.
Children often quickly venture out to climb on the rocks or explore some of the many water holes. In the café, you can usually borrow a fishing net. You can also scour the sands for “childrens’ diamonds”, which are small shards of glass, weathered by the sand and sea.
Kalas-Kalas serves coffee from Roast Coffee. You’ll also find locally brewed beer, homemade baked goods and rolls made from rye to satiate your hunger.
Kalas-Kalas is a family run business, and even through two of their sons no longer live on the island, they return to work at the café every summer. During the winter, they keep busy planning new initiatives and developing the café and ice cream recipes.
Both locals and tourists benefit from the new initiatives the boys hatch during the winter months. For instance, this is how the company Boating Bornholm came about. The family has always had a keen interest in exploring nature, both on and off-shore, and they recently bought an RIB (rigid-inflatable boat) that holds up to 12 people, allowing visitors to discover Bornholm from the seaside. You can choose from a variety of trips: some take you to the steep cliffs with nesting locations for bird colonies by Hammerknuden, some explore the many seal colonies off of the coast of Christiansø, and some just focus of the sunset and the rocky coastline. You can visit boatingbornholm.dk for more information. In 2019, the boys will also start renting paddle boats at the café.
Everybody has their favorite ice cream be it the classical chocolate, vanilla or nougat, or the popular hazelnut, salty caramel, blackberry or the lemon meringue ice cream which is inspired by the French cake: Tarte au Citron. You will find new flavors in the cold counter everyday – much to most people’s delight, but also to some people’s frustration, as the ice cream you discovered and loved yesterday has now been replaced by another.
When you have finished enjoying your ice cream, but aren’t quite ready to let go of the comfortable FatBoy and the amazing view, you can always treat yourself to a coffee made from freshly roasted beans from Roast Coffee to prolong the experience.
