AURA
One Seaport Lane, Seaport Hotel
Boston
(617) 385-4300
(Directions)

Restaurant reviewed 05/26/98 by Alison Arnett

AURA Type: Eclectic Prices: Appetizers: $8-$18; entrees: $24-$31; desserts: $6-$8. Good choices: Grilled foie gras, Asian pear compote; Belon oysters; tart of morels, asparagus and aged goat cheese; grilled red snapper, citrus jus; roast rabbit; cedar-roasted bass; ginger biscuit with strawberries; sorbet carousel. Hours: Daily: lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, 5:30- 10:30 p.m. Sunday brunch: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Reservations accepted. No smoking. Credit cards: All major cards. Access: Fully accessible

My first visit to Aura, the new restaurant in the newest hotel in Boston, feels slightly edgy. The Seaport Hotel, owned by Fidelity Capital, still looks a little unfinished; the lobby is empty with only the young people running the place chatting distractedly behind desks. The restaurant, too, is wide open. Although several layers of head waiters, midlevel waiters, waiters, and waitresses - plus bread-deliverers and busboys - almost immediately swarm around us, many of them seem unsure, trained but not seasoned.

The executive chef, Ed Doyle, is definitely seasoned, with restaurant experience at the Boston Harbor Hotel, at the Julien in the Meridien, and as chef of the Back Bay Brewing Company.

So we open the menu expectantly, ready to be impressed.

We are, but intermittently. Many of his dishes sing with impeccable ingredients, imaginative treatments, and a deft way with presentation. In some, the inspiration, or perhaps the boldness, flags. A later visit, however, does prove that practice has definitely smoothed the service.

The first touch of inspiration shines in an appetizer of a warm tart of morels, asparagus, and aged goat cheese, a rustic affair with a good, crumbly crust; it's a paragon of balance, a delicious showcase for two vegetable stars of spring. The cheese makes the dish, however, because the aging subtly emphasizes the contrast among fresh (asparagus), woodsy (morels), and this savory soured backdrop, with none of the bright acidity of fresh chevre.

Luxury describes grilled foie gras lying like a leopard on a plate surrounded by maple-braised shallots and a drizzle of excellent balsamic vinegar. Chunky Asian pear compote, spiked with lots of ginger, gives a counterpoint to the silky foie gras.

Doyle glories in simplicity - in finding an exquisite gift of nature and then presenting it well, without artifice. He finds perfect, plump Belon oysters from Maine, presents them in a beautiful box filled with polished stones, and tops them with a dollop of cucumber granite (merely iced cucumber juice) and another of ossetra caviar. The result is transcendent, the oysters thrillingly tasting of sea against one's teeth, plump on the tongue.

The main courses, too, show star turns. Red snapper is grilled and then surrounded by little golden and striped red and white chioga beets. The sauce tastes strongly of citrus, a surprise at first against the mild fish and earthy beets but a flavor that grows on the palate, pleasant in its piquancy. Roast rabbit is delicious, each element offering a slightly different flavor of what can be a rather boring meat. The white loin pieces are tender, the racks crispy at the edges, the sauce richly supporting the meat flavors. One leg is stuffed with rabbit forcemeat, truffles, and herbs, giving an entirely different take on rabbit. Artichokes, baby carrots, and mushrooms fill out this abundant dish.

Striped bass, the farm-raised variety, is roasted on a cedar shingle, stuffed with preserved lemon slices and rosemary. The fish is good, very good, but the flavors of the lemon and herbs are most concentrated toward the tail (maybe more stuffing was needed near the top, thicker part of the fish), causing all at our table to ask for bites from that end.

Other dishes, though, lack spark, or perhaps show timidity. An amuse d'gueule, a little complimentary taste from the chef at the start of the meal, is Southwestern-style crabmeat on a cracker. The crabmeat is fine, but the seasoning doesn't taste Southwestern, really doesn't taste of anything. An appetizer features tuna tartar and tuna carpaccio, both fresh and very good, and slightly seared tuna, which has little taste. Waikame, a bright green seaweed salad, is a nice treat but there seems to be none of the promised wasabi in the vinaigrette and the dish desperately needs that sharp emphasis to pull the elements together. Lobster ragout on white polenta with celery root is just drab, too many bland flavors piled atop one another.

The roast cod is a gigantic portion but a little clumsy on the plate. And tuna probably wasn't meant to be steamed; the dish is unremarkable, not the usual reaction to this flamboyant fish.

One night all the breads are excellent, but on a later visit the flatbreads used as embellishments -such as a feuille de brick for the foie gras appetizer and a black pepper tuille on the applewood roasted venison - are limp and stale. When flatbreads are used to add a crunch, like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, they should do just that.

Desserts by Carrie Cole are another story, sparkling with exuberance. The splashy influence of Le Cirque 2000 in New York shows in the carousel of sorbets, certainly the most elaborate sorbet presentation around. Cookie dough shaped into a turreted carousel complete with tiny animal crackers holds four little scoops of grapefruit, pineapple, mango, and strawberry sorbets. It's a great combination of light, bracing flavors against the buttery, and very good, cookie construction.

A teardrop-shaped mold of chocolate holds banana cream pudding; a lavender creme brulee is smooth and delicate. My favorite, though, is the most homey, a spectacular ginger cream biscuit, light and crumbly. A mixture of strawberries and rhubarb has just the right amount of tart and sweet against the whipped cream and the biscuit.

Aura sports a thorough and varied wine list. Although like the menu prices, many bottles reach well above $50, we manage to find several nice selections in the $35 range. As is certainly the case in many hotel restaurants, the wine list reflects hotel prices in general. One is paying for lots of solicitous service, extras at the beginning and chocolate treats at the end, as well as fine food and wines, and expects to pay the price. That's understandable, but though the entrees are large in portion with lots of extra fillips, the appetizers seemed spare and pricey. In a phone interview, Doyle said, without prompting, that he was lowering prices on several items, so maybe I wasn't the only one to notice. Service here is compris, with a 15 percent gratuity added in, so that mitigates the bill somewhat. Another person in my party one evening saw a waitress handing a wad of money back to a diner at another table, telling him she couldn't take the extra tip, so they seem to mean it.

Aura is on a frontier, in an area that will probably be booming once all the pieces fall into place and the Big Dig is completed. The restaurant's food and ambience seem still a work in progress, too, with some wonderful dishes and ideas in place, and other elements that haven't been quite polished yet. However, Doyle's talent along with that of his pastry chef and the staff make it promising, well worth some settling-in time.