‘Milk Beach’ makes me think of milky-white sands, wind in the hair and salt in the air.

While this little café-cum-natural wine bar is miles away from any beach – it’s located in Queen’s Park, down quaint little Lonsdale Road – it’s unsurprisingly run by Australians.

The interior resembles that of an open air beachside café (think shades of white and grey, blonde wood and rattan), but it isn’t out of place in central London, and judging by how busy it gets, there’s local appetite for what’s on offer.

By day, Milk Beach serves typical Aussie brunch fare: homemade banana bread, açaí bowls, smashed avo and eggs on sourdough toast. B’s best friend rates the coffee highly, doing nothing to dispel the stereotype that Australians and New Zealanders make the best coffee in London.

By night, from Wednesday to Sunday, it serves a range of tasty sharing plates with Australian accents, including:

• heritage tomatoes, watermelon, eucalyptus and smoked olive oil

• roasted butternut squash, macadamia pesto and coconut yoghurt, and

• (our favourite) orecchiette in spinach and garlic sauce with cured egg yolk.

Milk Beach has a modest but attractive wine list. Its wines are all organic, vegan and sourced from small, independent winemakers who practice low-intervention winemaking. Bottles are also available at retail prices to enjoy at home. However, the main attraction is Milk Beach’s fortnightly natural wine tastings (usually on a Wednesday or Thursday night). At £20 a pop for six half-glass tastings, it’s excellent value and lots of fun.

On the Wednesday night that we’re there, it’s all about Sicilian wines. We taste:

• Vino di Anna Palmento Blanco 2018

• Caravaggio Antonino IGT Salina, Occhio di Terra Malvasia 2018

• I Vigneri Aurora 2018

• Ciello Baglio Rosso 2018

• Etnella Kaos 2017, and

• Giusto Occhipinti and Giambattista Cilia Frappato 2017.

The servings are generous and the service is extra friendly.  Our waiter keeps looking at his notes when he’s describing the wines to us, but we’re enjoying ourselves so much that it really doesn’t matter.  In the small café space, the atmosphere is cheerful and buzzing, and we leave full and tipsy, having forgotten our earlier stressful hours at work.  It’s an excellent shout for catching up with friends and whiling a weeknight away.

Check out Milk Beach’s Instagram page for all upcoming tastings.