Aurora

Nice place. Good dinner, great taste. I'll go again.

the brunch dinner the desserts its all excellent. the wine list even isnt half bad. they have did an amazing job here. my favorite place in williamsburg without the williamsburg hipsters serving you with attitude and mirth! its superb, well the food is. i love this place!

I know and love this place well since it is almost down the street from where I live. After many happy early evenings out, I encouraged my friends who live in the city to give it a shot and come out to Brooklyn and experience Aurora's excellent food. Our reservation was for 8:30 on a Friday night. Prime time for sure. But we waited 45 minutes for our table and I just don't really know how the hostess could justify that. We stood there trying not to be "those people", you know, rude maniacs-but we watched the staff working around empty tables for so long we couldn't help but say something. We were told the tables were for other reservations. We were finally seated and our server was obviously new-she didn't take our order for 20 more minutes until we flagged her down. At this point we all just decided to relax and enjoy despite the whole service thing. The food made up for everything. I had the roasted pear app, an amazing dumpling special and everyone oohed and ahhed over the free form ravioli. Everything was fresh and homeade. My friends were impressed though when 11:00 rolled around and we were just leaving they gave me a hard time about living in Brooklyn and the "Brooklyn service" at places like Aurora. Most places will comp you a drink or something for making you wait 45 min. after your reservation but Aurora looked at us like, "Yeah, and?" My advice? Go early. Go on the weekdays. Enjoy!

My friend in the 'burg eats here weekly and he suggested it or I never would have known to try it. Another kudo to my plugged in pal--this is what you hope for when escaping the city for a meal. Attentive staff (maybe they worked that issue out), especially the manager, who came over to confide that they had a home made pasta with black truffles and that right now there were simply no better truffles to be found anywhere. They had just come in and when they were gone, well, he shrugged, that was it. Truffles usually excite something a bit irrational in the diner willing to pay the premium for them, and I've always been a fan, so with the prospect of eating ones that were akin to contraband, we were unable to resist, and decided to skip our other apps and split an entree ($40!-the most expensive thing on the menu). Simply put: worth every penny. My friend had the pigeon and I the steak; all the meat and fowl seem to be wild/organic Hudson Valley selections, and the emphasis of the menu is on mainly local ingredients (fleeting Italian truffles notwithstanding). Pigeon was good, steak was righteous and they followed orders and brought it out truly rare. Yum. Didn't get to crack a bottle of wine since I was the only one drinking, but the $7 red by the glass (Nero I think) was nice. Dessert was the Affogato, which was chocolate encrusted around vanilla a la truffle and "drowning" in espresso--I was hoping for vanilla by itself, but the overall effect was still tasty. Plenty great for the money, nice ambience, lively crowd but still a private feel at the tables, and a raft of other foods that went untried and will bring me back to discover more...

OK. so, I dont cook. My husband doesnt cook. So we eat out. We have been to every single restaurant. New, old... always looking for new ones. HOWEVER, aurora is the one we return to, AT LEAST once a week. Food is outstanding... and truly, a few reviews on here complaining about the service... WAKE UP!! being a server sucks, so PARDON THEM for not being in the mood to smile and tell u their name. The locale is gorgeous, really romantic but also a great place to go with big groups. The prices are EXCELLENT for the top notch quality of all the ingredients they use. Also, the menu always changes with the season (and maybe a few more times) so you can keep going back and never be bored by the selections. I recommend this restaurant to anyone who truly loves food. You will not be disappointed.

Generally speaking, our dinner last night at Aurora was truly excellent in terms of food, atmosphere and bang for your buck. Aurora has some truly interesting dishes and everything we ate was delicious. Service was another story. Despite a myriad of wait staff and bus boys, it took almost until our main course was served to get our bottle of wine, and then it took about 30 minutes after finishing our dinner just to have our plates cleared. It was actually funny at first as we watched the number of times our table was passed up despite the anxious looks on our faces, but after awhile we just gave up on the idea of having coffee and dessert and just wanted to leave. A shame because everything else here seems to be pretty on. We'll give it another shot of course, but a poor service repeat would not be tolerated again. I've noticed that most of Williamsburg's better restaurants tend to have poor service, so perhaps this is just the way it is when you end up employing a bunch of Hipsters who begrudgingly have to earn some scratch inbetween their beloved art projects.

I completely disagree with the previous review and had to speak up... Aurora is the ONLY place I can take my Italian friends. The food is delicious and authentic. They offered specialties that we were surprised to see outside of Italy and I feel this restaurant is also a great value... we were surprised how inexpensive our meals were compared to how much we enjoyed them! Delicious!