Aurora restaurant celebrates fifth year in business, announces new pastry chef

by Teresa Gubbins

DALLAS — Aurora, the top-ranked Oak Lawn restaurant owned by Avner and Celeste Samuel, marked its fifth year in business on Thursday with magnums and jeroboams of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne, hors d'oeuvres, and the announcement of a new pastry chef, Stephen Noe.

Noe, whose background includes a stint at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California, presented some of his new desserts including a "Degustation of Vitamin C" with an elegant quartet of fruit treats including Meyer lemon panna cotta, Key lime tart, and a flawless gelee flavored with mango.

Beginning next week, Aurora will ship in famed white truffles from Alba, Italy, which will be displayed in a see-through humidor that'll compete for wow value with the restaurant's sterling silver Christofle champagne cart. The truffles will be served in a special reservation-only menu from Wednesday through Saturday, and will be the subject of a cooking class on Saturday, October 20 at 10 a.m. The class includes personal instruction and is followed by a four-course lunch with wine pairing, for $95. For reservations, call 214-528-9400.

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has Aurora really been open 5 years? really?

Johnny_Stecchino Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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technically, they're starting their fifth year of being in business. i'll change that headline. thank you johnny stecchino

Teresa Gubbins Staff

2 years, 1 month ago
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Here in Santa Fe, all the buzzzzzzz amongst the foodie beezzzzzz is: Avner has actually stayed in a place more than 16 months?!

Salut~!

Billusa99 Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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Why are there so many Avner naysayers? Yes, perhaps he is not always accurate as to his history, but do you think the powers behind other Dallas chefs are either? I've never seen anyone dumping on Dean Fearing for the promotion of the Mansion's tortilla soup, which was introduced there by Avner, who also earned the hotel its first five-star rating. Mostly the press seems to follow the big guy's PR blitz's. For example, see Texas Monthly's slavish review of Fearing's, which claims he put the Mansion on the map. And Patricia Sharpe should know better.

mizery Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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I thought The Mansion got its fifth Mobil star (for the restaurant) in the mid-'90s. That would've been on Fearing's watch.

Samuel was at The Mansion for a few years. Fearing helmed the restaurant for more than two decades. Samuel's talent aside, it's not hard to understand why people would associate the restaurant with Fearing, rather than Samuel.

Scott Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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regardless of when the mansion got its 5th star, i think it's true that avner does not get the credit he deserves for making the mansion what it was and is. (and i know that scott is one of the folks that has given avner credit.)

i've had one quick meal at fearing's and, while the food was certainly "edible," it's hardly the reason anyone is going there

Teresa Gubbins Staff

2 years, 1 month ago
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Scott: The 5th star I was talking about was from The News. You could argue that from the day it opened, under the auspices of New York's 21 Club, the Mansion was a hit and would have been popular with Dallasites no matter what the kitchen served.

As for Dean carrying it for 20 years, sadly it has always been my impression that The Mansion carried him. He is a good chef and perhaps the most congenial one in Dallas. To meet him is to like him. But he far from the best chef in town and it was mainly by Rosewood's clout that he has been considered so. At some point, the Mansion stars have been lowered by every local rating publication, including Texas Monthly. I think I was the first to slash them, and the reaction was prety intense. I had a lunch with Rosewood top honchos, at their insistence, that was not unlike you might imagine it would be to dine with Karl Rove or Dick Cheney after criticing Bush.

I often think Dean might have done better, more creative things if he hadn't been shielded by Rosewood. His initial fame, after all, didn't come from the Mansion. It came from a New York Times story by Craig Claibourne about his food at a restaurant owned by Tom Agnew, who like Avner was also a bad boy of the restaurant scene but one that had great influence.

Sorry this is so long. I get riled up on this subject, probably because I see Avner as a regular guy who made it despite the machine. In his first Mansion cookbook, Dean wrote Avner completely out as one of the founders of Southwestern cuisine, reducing the "gang of five" to the "gang of four." Of the other three founders, Robert Del Grande, Ann Lindsay Greer and Stephan Pyles, only Pyles was big enough to defend Avner's place.

mizery Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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Excellent background info, Mizery. I'll have to track down that Claiborne article.

Scott Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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I always thought that Mark Miller was one of the "so-called founders" of southwestern cuisine. His (southwestern) Fourth Street Grill opened in '79 in Berkeley, CA and then he moved on to his Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe in '87.

Cafe Annie opened in '81 or '82 in Houston and Del Grande started cooking there after it opened. He was a PhD in Biochem, not a chef and was not the original founder. It belonged to his girlfriend/future wife's sister and her husband.

Routh Street Cafe didn't open till about '88, no??

Billusa99 Anonymous

2 years, 1 month ago
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Scott: If it will help in your search, I think recipe Claiborne used with his article was for yellow bell pepper soup.

Billusa: You are right that Miller is considered one of the first Southwestern chefs. Perhaps I should have described the gang of five as the Texas chefs credited with pioneering Southwestern.

I believe Routh Street Cafe opened much earlier than 1988, probably early '80s. I'd have to check,

Teresa: Re your visit to Fearing's. Did you try the signature rib-eye, or see it going to a table near you? Shades of the cowboy rib-eye at Star Canyon!