The Aurora Inn
The Aurora Inn, Aurora, NY (Upstate NY)
http://www.aurora-inn.com/dining.html
Price: $$$
Cuisine: American Country
General Recommendation: Highly Recommend for dates, visitors, or a fun
evening with a few friends. The food and service were good, the
building and restaurant are elegant yet cozy and you should have a great time.
We went to the Aurora Inn on Friday on the recommendation of two different Cayuga Lake wineries (Kings Ferry and Montezuma). Both recommenders mentioned that the food and atmosphere at the Inn would be wonderful and a bit romantic and they said it was okay that we were in jeans. So off we went and in short, we had a great time and I do recommend going there if you’re ever in the area.
The Food:
You can go online and check out the menu in full, if you’d like. They call the cuisine classic American country fare. You have a choice to do the prix fix menu which is $42 and you get an appetizer, a soup or salad, an entree and dessert. Both John and I did this. From a cost perspective, I thought it was a great deal considering the amount and quality of the food.
Here are details on our order:
First Course: Baked Brie in Phylo Dough (me) and Calamari (John). Small note: the brie dish takes a bit longer (about 15 minutes), but they bring you nice, warm fresh bread to keep you happy). The calamari came with some sort of aioli sauce on it which was an interesting and different take on that dish. John enjoyed it. This course was fine but I’d probably order something else as a starter- maybe the escargots or the tuna tartare next time.
Second Course: Spinach salad (me) and a White Wine Fennel Bisque (John). I enjoyed the spinach salad- it wasn’t too tart like many can be and the sugared walnuts were a nice additon. John seemed to enjoy his soup.
Main Course: Filet Mignon and Sweet Potato Gnocci (me) and Pan Seared Sea Scallops (John). My meat was cooked well and quite juicy. I would have liked to have seen a slightly better cut of meat- this one had a fairly fatty section I couldn’t eat- but I didn’t need that much meat and I really enjoyed the good parts of it. And the gnocci was fantastic- as was the sauce. I would DEFINITELY recommend the filet. John’s sea scallops were fine. As usual for scallops, there were only a few on his plate so he probably would have ordered something more substantial but the scallops were cooked perfectly and presented well. You won’t be disappointed with either entree.
Dessert: This is where the prix fix menu gets you. Neither of us wanted dessert but it was included. I think that the Aurora Inn could have done a better job with this part of the menu- there wasn’t really anything I wanted and ended up going with a lemon tart which was fine. John got the creme brulee and they did a nice job with it. In my opinon, creme brulee is pretty hard to mess up but I’ve seen it done and this one was tasty. If you’re a big dessert fan, however, this might not be your favorite restaurant.
Drinks:
The restaurant has a full bar but the wine list was fairly limited. Considering that the Inn is located at the edge of NY State’s largest wine region, the list boasted few NY wines and a limited number of other wines. This surprised us a bit. Fortunately, the wines on the list were very reasonably priced.
The Service:
The service was friendly and our server did a nice job. We had ample forks and no one took away our plates too early. My only real complaint was that we had to refill our own wine glasses. But they did a good job keeping our water glasses full. Since it was just John and I, we didn’t split the bill but I have a feeling that we would not have had a problem if we had given them two credit cards.
The Atmosphere:
This may have been a primary reason for me enjoying the restaurant so much. It’s a cozy, beautiful Inn with a fireplace, a small bar and dark wood tables. The view of the lake was absolutely wonderful- we lucked out getting there before it got dark out. If you go for dinner, go just before it gets dark to take advantage of the great view of the lake. The restaurant is like a house so there are several little areas which makes it both intimate as well as a great place to have a small gathering. I really enjoyed being there.
