Restaurant review: Aurora is a theatrical delight

It may look like an apple but this is a culinary masterpiece with each layer offering something delightful and delicious.

The Forbidden Fruit dessert at Aurora restaurant, Adelaide

The Forbidden Fruit and all its biblical connotations has kept painters and storytellers busy since, well, Adam was a boy.

At city restaurant Aurora, a dessert of this name looks like a perfect, unblemished green apple sitting on a bed of magical shimmering crystals. But all is not what it seems.

The apple, in fact, is a painted sphere of white chocolate filled with a whipped mousse. And the crystals? They are a cider-vinegar-spiked jelly with just enough granny smith tang to cut through all that richness. A lesson in temptation.

That such an artful dish should feature in a dinner at Aurora shouldn’t be a surprise. The restaurant is part of ILA, or Immersive Light and Art, the multifaceted performance and entertainment precinct in an old tobacco factory on Light Square’s west side.

While upper floors within the building are devoted to galleries, video installations and other creative endeavours, Aurora plays its part by exploring how gastronomy and art might be integrated, particularly during the multi-sensory Immersive Table sessions.

Still, even during regular service new chef Robin Wagner likes to push the boundaries in food that is presented with an eye for colour and form.

Mullet, muntrie, smoked oyster at Aurora restaurant, Adelaide

The Forbidden Fruit dessert at Aurora restaurant, Adelaide

Interior at Aurora restaurant, Adelaide

He and his team practise their craft on a stage-like open kitchen, looking out across their audience who are spread across a dining room that can be extended further to a rear space screened off by closed curtains.

The mood is enhanced by a stripped-back, blackened ceiling and carefully controlled lighting that makes the table lamps a godsend.

Music is played in themed brackets, jumping without warning from contemporary electronica to 1980s bangers.

Our uber-attentive waiter has a manner that at times borders on the theatrical but his wine recommendations are first rate and he helps to fill in some of the detail in a menu that describes each dish with a shopping list of ingredients. Goat’s curd / beetroot / rhubarb, for example, leaves much to the imagination.

German-born Wagner spent his formative culinary years in the Michelin-starred restaurants of his homeland before finding his way to Adelaide via Sepia in Sydney and regional legend Lake House.

This classical training shows from the start of a set selection with a warm scroll containing a rich seam of pulverised olives (in place of the local bakery’s Vegemite) and a serve of house-churned butter. It takes considerable willpower to keep a little aside, as is suggested.

The pay-off comes when dipping the remaining bits into a stunning clear consommé of tomato that is sharpened with an escabeche-inspired mix of vinegar and spices. A pool of this elixir laps against a clump of twirled kohlrabi ribbons that have been treated in a sweet pickle, along with a leek and green olive puree that takes the combination to another stratosphere.

Cubes of cured Coorong mullet, pickled muntries, a smoked oyster mayo and strips of the fish’s dry, puffed skin are composed into a salad that dodges and weaves in different directions with each mouthful, working best with a bit of everything on the fork. The same applies with slices of briefly grilled kangaroo loin tataki, braised eggplant, finger lime and betel leaves that, unusually, have been cooked, giving them an exotic (potentially divisive) perfumed flavour.

Mussels are poached so perfectly you could imagine them being cooked one at a time so the meat could be removed the moment its shell springs open. These delightful plump lozenges are arranged around a dollop of macadamia cream, dotted with fried capers, then encircled by a bisque based on their juices and another ring of vivid green native thyme oil. Like wow …

A duck breast with skin that cracks like toffee and perfect blushing flesh again shows the benefit of all those early lessons, as does an excellent red cabbage kraut. The accompanying puree of lilli pilli berries and peach, on the other hand, is definitely from this part of the world.

The five courses conclude with two desserts – the mousse-filled apple and a ganache of banana bread topped with brown-butter ice cream – that together take the creamy/rich/indulgent factor right to, if not over, the edge.

Temptation? Or is it gluttony? Food, like art, is very much in the eye of the beholder.

63 Light Square, Adelaide

0422 245511

auroraadl.com.au

Main courses $35-$55 (three courses $95; five courses $130)

Open

Dinner Wed-Sat

Must try

Blue mussels, macadamia, native thyme

Verdict

Food 16/20

Ambience 15/20

Service 16/20

Value 14/20

Overall 15.5/20

As a guide, scores indicate:

1-9 Fail; 10-11 Satisfactory;
12-14 Recommended; 15-16 Very Good; 17-18 Outstanding;
19-20 World Class

delicious.com.au/eatout