A familiar sight around here – almost as familiar as the seagulls patrolling the bay beach for sandwich crusts and chips – their mission is made easier by two roundabouts and the devil-may-care attitude of locals who think nothing of bringing traffic to a standstill while manoeuvring kids and prams out of their SUVs.
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Warm weather brings birds of a feather out to play in the Mornington Peninsula’s party town. Portsea just down the road has its celebrated pub, but Sorrento outnumbers it with two recently renovated grand dames: the Conti (the Continental Sorrento, if we’re to adopt more formal terms) and the Hotel Sorrento, which has only just launched its dining room in a blaze of aesthetically on-point limestone, the “quiet luxury” building tool of choice in these upmarket parts.
Sorrento is the kind of moneyed beach town that ensures visitors don’t have to leave. Whether you’re after a new mascara (Mecca), a chequed men’s shirt (Gazman) or just a classic newsagent for a glossy beach read and a Lotto ticket (because the $40 million superdraw has to go to someone, right?), it’s a mostly frictionless place for residents and blow-ins.
There’s a proper Ritchies IGA for the groceries and a cafe serving an excellent vanilla slice (which is just as well, seeing it’s named the Vanilla Slice Cafe).
At 107 kilometres from Melbourne, it’s an easy day trip, although Point Nepean Road becomes sclerotic in the post-Christmas period. Seize upon the additional travel time as an opportunity to practise mindfulness while feeling smug driving through Rosebud and Rye en route to the promised land.
If a real estate purchase is on your lucky horizon, get ready to spend some serious coin. Entry-level homes in the sub-$2 million price bracket are as rare as car parks, and the local penchant for tennis courts and swimming pools sends that figure rising rapidly.
Better buy that lottery ticket – it might almost be enough to purchase a house so close to the centre of town that walking isn’t a problem.
10 Kerferd Avenue, Sorrento VIC 3943
Larissa Dubecki Larissa Dubecki has been a journalist for 20 years, in a career spanning news writing and specialist food reviewing, including seven years as The Age's chief restaurant critic. Her work has appeared in publications including Guardian Australia, Gourmet Traveller, Time Out and The Australian. She is the author of the 2015 memoir Prick With a Fork.
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