Beauty and the Feast

A passion for our natural heritage, an imaginative artistic vision, and some determined scrounge-hounding has resulted in the destination café that is Eutopia, in Northland’s Kaiwaka. Here’s to checking the coffee and finding out what’s behind the scenes.

First opened in 2001, Eutopia Café had fallen into disrepair when Marijke Valkenburg and her husband Robert terVeer bought it in 2014. They imagined eighteen months of solid slog should do the trick to upgrade the funky coffeehouse, but it was five years before they opened in April 2019. Now Eutopia serves breakfast, lunch and coffees, with as much organic food as possible, in an environment that sparks the imagination and draws in ever more curious visitors and day-trippers.

Feast your eyes
It’s listed on the Snap Happy Travel Blog as one of ten cafés with the best views in the North Island – but the difference is that Eutopia’s ‘views’ are all about the premises themselves.

The Mirror Dome, for example, is one of the small eating nooks. The domed ceiling is a fresco of the universe, while tile mosaics – including mirrors – reach around the room so wherever you look, you see endlessly into mirror depths. It represents infinity, as well as ‘life, the universe, and everything’, says Marijke. “Everyone who comes into this room changes the feel of it, by the colours they wear and their energetic output.”

Immersed in the natural world
Natural light coming through wonky windows reveals the tiled mosaic of a magnified human nerve cell on the floor. It’s a reflection of Marijke’s passion for science. She holds a B.Sc. (biology) from Waikato University and has a special interest in New Zealand’s flora and fauna.

Everything from kōwhai to rūrū, harakeke to tūī, geckos to kererū – and much more – are represented on the walls, ceilings, floors, in sculptures, on poles, the roof, tucked into corners – anywhere your eye falls. Even Marijke doesn’t know how many native species are represented, there are so many.

The Eutopians
Marijke, Robert, and sons Anton (33) and Kane (31) were involved in the original set-up of the permaculture-based Otamatea Eco Village in 1995, and, except for Kane, still live there.

They deliberated long and hard about taking Eutopia on, as Robert really wasn’t keen on running a café. Once they got into the café, its dilapidated state became painfully obvious and the project went from being a fix-up to a complete rebuild on a difficult site. This included re-establishing foundations, retaining walls, drainage, plumbing, floor level realignments to steer rainwater outside the buildings, landscaping, providing carparks, re-wiring, and more.

Major projects have a way of necessitating new skills, and Marijke, a school teacher who helped every Saturday in a children’s art school for ten years, and Robert, a dialysis technician, were about to expand theirs.

A creative partnership
Robert engineered and built much of the unusual structure on the left at the bottom of the Kaiwaka hill (heading north), and created all the new joinery, steelwork and stonework. His innovative solutions include an ingenious hinged dome-shaped canopy to keep the entrance dry.

The artwork, glass design, sculptures, ceramics, and mosaics are all Marijke’s creations. Both of them construct and carve the concrete walls.

Reusing and repurposing materials
The building and much of the café furniture is created from welded steel framing, mesh and plaster. The plaster is Marijke and Robert’s own recipe based on silica sand, and provides the canvas for shallow carved images of native plants, birds, animals, insects and taniwha.

“The plaster mix goes off within a few hours so carving has to happen quickly,” says Marijke. “I draw outlines for the artworks and Robert and I remove the negative space first. The next day we get the tungsten blades out as the plaster gets harder. On the third day before the plaster hardens beyond the capacity of any blade, we tackle the detail.”

The couple have become “super-scroungers,” reusing and repurposing materials that would otherwise become waste. All the artworks, sculptures, glass designs and mosaics are made from offcuts, end-of-range tiles, donated and found items; very little is purchased new.

Is it Hundertwasser?
Visitors often ask if Eutopia is created by Friedensreich Hundertwasser or inspired by him. But the Gaudi-esque no-straight-lines-anywhere forms at Eutopia are quite different from Hundertwasser’s style of mainly primary colours, concentric patterns and onion dome shapes.

At Eutopia, mosaics in the form of massive lizards and native flora and fauna interrupt otherwise geometric tiling, but in homage to Hundertwasser, Marijke has created the men’s toilet in his style.

Rainwater is collected from the roofs and filtered through carbon and UV filters, but water also has to be bought in. The toilets are on town supply.

What about the food?
Once you’ve feasted your eyes, it’s time to enjoy a coffee and a nice piece of cake or a good meal in this extraordinary ambience.

Eutopia offers all sorts of gustatory delights, catering to virtually every specialised food need. Most popular are the Big Vegan (falafels, roast veges, greens, pesto and aioli), a fish chowder that wows, and traditional eggs benedict.

Local, whole, organic
As much as possible, Eutopia Café sources foods and drinks that are organic, local, minimally processed, natural and sustainable.

Marijke gets eggs locally from free-range chooks, much of the fruit and vegetables come from her organically grown permaculture garden, and the coffee beans from local supplier, Rush Coffee, are organic. The bottled drinks from Phoenix and No Ugly, locally brewed Rene’s Kombucha, and Hakanoa drinks are all in glass. Non-homogenised Bella Vacca milk comes from Kerikeri in glass bottles too.

Eutopia would like to source more organic food and ingredients, but as a small operation they rely on only a few providers, who don’t have large organic ranges, so it’s difficult to source the variety they’d like.

Marijke is also careful to provide the most sustainably sourced seafood possible. “I go to MPI to find out what the by-catch of a fish species is, and whether seabirds and marine mammals are protected by the fishing methods used.”

Still evolving
There is still ‘oceans’ of painting left to do, many sculptures still to create, and the occasional repair to do. Then there’s the running of a busy café, but Marijke says it’s all been worth it, even if Robert still isn’t so keen.

Eutopia Café celebrates New Zealand’s natural heritage, and represents an imaginative way of feeding body and soul.

“The long-term aim for the café is to support local projects such as the Kaipara Coastal Restoration,” says Marijke, “so when people come in to have an organic coffee, they can feel they are also doing a tiny bit to help save the world.”

 

Eutopia at a glance

Eutopia Café quick peek
• Location: Bottom of the hill, 1955 SH1, Kaiwaka
• Love: Kids, adults, wandering minstrels, travellers, weddings, out-catering
• Cater to: Omnivores, keto, vegans, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarians
• Hours: 8.30 am – 3 pm Mon–Thurs; 8.30 am – 3.30 pm Fri–Sun
www.facebook.com/eutopiacafe

Recipes

Mussel and quinoa fritters
Makes about 8

2 large onions, finely chopped
2 T butter
1 kg roughly chopped mussels
1 cup cream
4 eggs
2 cups flour (gluten-free optional)
2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp curry powder
1 tsp paprika
2 T chopped parsley
2 tsp dill
1 cup quinoa, cooked
4 tsp black pepper
3 tsp salt

1. Sauté onion in butter until translucent. Stir in paprika and curry and continue to sauté for a minute until spices are fragrant, then add herbs.
2. Transfer to a large bowl, add all remaining ingredients and mix well.
3. Cool and form into large patties.
4. Fry until golden on each side.
5. Excess patties can be frozen into free-flow portions.
6. Serve with a hearty fresh salad and a generous drizzle of tartare sauce or curried aioli (1 tsp curry to 200 ml aioli).

Raw vegan bliss balls
Gluten-free

2 cups mixed dried fruit: raisins, sultanas, cranberries, figs
3/4 cup dates
boiling water for soaking
3 cups mixed nuts and seeds (such as almonds, cashews, peanuts, pumpkin seeds)
2 cups coconut (plus extra for rolling)
3/4 cup tahini and/or peanut butter
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice or Dutch speculaas spice

1. Cover the mixed dried fruit and the dates in boiling water, and soak for 5-10 minutes.
2. Put everything in a food processor and blend.
3. Add cornflakes or oatmeal if too moist.
4. Roll into balls, coat with extra shredded coconut and put in the fridge.

 

First Published in Organic NZ Magazine – July/August 2021 Vol.80, No.4

© Theresa Sjoquist 2021