My wife and I and some friends had dinner last night at the new Aurora and the food was excellent. The main feature, aside from a lot more room, is a large wood burning oven used to make individual pizzas and to cook a number of the main courses. The restaurant has a good size bar, a front dining room [the smoking room] with a view into the wood burning oven part of the kitchen (there is also a separate back kitchen), a separate non-smoking dining room, and, we were told, a private room for groups. The decor is attractive - ask about the way the floor in the front dining room was prepared. As with many new restaurants, the clean lines and lack of soft surfaces makes for a loud background noise. (Is it just me or has anybody else noticed that people tend to talk louder in restaurants these days?) The two types of appetizer pizzas we tried were excellent with a real bread-like crust which I prefer to the foccacia-type appetizer at places like 411 - they are also very good it is simply a matter of personal taste. We split an order of mushroom filled ravioli which were made at the restaurant and were very good. As has always been the case with pasta at Aurora, they and the sauce were a kind of Italian-California style. Very good but not pure Italian such as you get at Vespa. I prefer the latter. Again a matter of personal preference. For our main courses, we all had food prepared in the wood burning oven - two orders of sliced duck breast, a New York strip steak on garlic mashed potatoes, and lamb. (I did not get to taste the lamb.) The steak and the duck breast were excellent and the person who had the lamb said it was great. The desserts were the wonderful weight killers from the old location. The wine list has always been a highlight because it contains, particularly in the Italian section, excellent well known wines which one never sees on the shelves in the local wine stores. The owner is very knowledgeable about Italian wines and it shows in the new list. (We had a Mastroberardino Fiano di Avellino white from Campania and a Lungarotti Torgiano Rosso Riserva Monticchio Vineyard red from Umbria.) The prices are as they were at the old location. Reasonable for the quality of the food but not inexpensive by any means. All in all, it would seem that the move has, if anything, improved the variety available to restaurant goers as well as the available seating. (For those with itchy typing fingers, I have no involvement with Aurora except as a customer of long standing.) Chuck
Raleigh-Durham, NC