It’s officially my least favourite season, and I miss the sizzling heat that is Summer in South Africa. Now while I’m no fan of dropping temperatures, the upside is that restaurants have a reason to switch up their offerings. To welcome the colder temperatures, Aurum recently launched its winter menu.
Aurum Welcomes Winter With New Menu
Granted you may not change your dietary habits during the colder season, sans an increased intake of oranges for their vitamin C content and hot chocolate for its sweet warmth, the team at Aurum has opted for a different approach.
“During the warmer seasons, the menu options are quite light and flavourful, but with winter, I prefer to add a little bit more to the plate, especially because people prefer meals that are nice, warm and serve to fill you up,” explains Head Chef Michelle Biondi.
Now while Chef Biondi admits that she’s no fan of the admin that comes with creating a new menu, she appreciates how switching up the menu introduces customers to different textures and flavours. After all, enjoying new tastes is part of the restaurant experience.
A citrusy starter
To start off, we enjoyed the Autumn Orange Salad with some Seared Duck as well as Polenta. The salad includes oranges, sun-dried tomatoes and hints of fennel and basil whilst the polenta comes with aubergine, tomato and parsley. Admittedly, I’m not really the biggest fan of polenta, but it was tasty enough and the inclusion of the seared duck in the salad was a fantastic culinary move.
So, how does Chef Biondi know which two ingredients to use to feed our palettes? Well, you may be surprised to hear that it’s pretty simple,
“What I usually do is think, ‘what am I going to put with this?'” she shares, adding that while the answer isn’t always a delicious one, it’s something she works on. Chef Biondi adds that she routinely tastes and switches up ingredients to ensure that consumers and their palettes are left satisfied.
A delicious main event
Let’s be honest, you can have a great starter and an even tastier dessert. However, if your main meal (read: event) isn’t up to par, then what’s the point? Thankfully, Aurum is not one of those restaurants that don’t have to worry about that.
For the main, the culinary artist that is Chef Biondi offered roasted line fish with fennel, lentil and sweet potato. The line fish is also sustainably sourced, which is always good to hear as we really need to do better at protecting our oceans. Now while the line fish was tasty enough, it wasn’t my favourite meal of the day. Rather, that honour went to the other main that I got to try out which was the lamb cutlets with the flavourful and unique combination of pistachio, corn and pomegranate.
This meal was delicious, flavourful, juicy and frankly just great. It was so great. It was just great. I need to go back.
A sweet ending
When it comes to dessert, I’m pretty simple – as long as there’s chocolate, I’m a happy girl. Now while I wasn’t offered chocolate in this case, I did get the chance to cater to my sweet tooth with Aurum cheesecake and a butterscotch mouse. Admittedly, I’ve never really been a fan of cheesecake but the butterscotch mousse was quite tasty. Frankly, I was too full to finish off the mousse, but I did thoroughly enjoy it.
Would I go back?
Absolutely.
The food was tasty and filling, our waiters were attentive and the atmosphere at Aurum, despite its bustling location, was quiet, warm and welcoming. I will say that my only gripe was how sweet the mocktails I had were. That said, I did appreciate that they had a variety of non-alcoholic options available, unlike other restaurants that rely on their bartenders to think on their feet.
Eat at Aurum
To indulge in some delicious winter meals, you can book at Aurum here.
Pastry Playdates 