Review - Aura Cocktail Bar

Several weeks ago I was invited to visit a cocktail bar in Kettering called 'Aura'. I had liaised with them a fair bit via our respective Twitter accounts and finally at last the dates all matched up and I went down on a Friday evening which coincided with a music night they were holding featuring local singer Olivia Winterflood.

The evening promised much as I had heard good things about the entertainment and atmosphere at Aura but I hadn't heard a great deal on the food front as it's a fairly new addition to their offering and that can always be a dubious time to visit. When another local bar/restaurant opened a few months back (it shall remain nameless) Facebook was awash with bad reviews about the food, prices and service. Not good, especially with several well known restaurants located closeby in Prezzo and Chimichanga. It's a brave move, but a calculated one when you consider that in a place like Kettering, the vast majority of the town's nightlife is situated in a half mile radius.

Being the hapless singleton that I am I took one of my good theatre friends Megan along with me to gauge her response also and to give me some needed company should the food and entertainment be found wanting!

My initial thoughts entering Aura were that it was somewhere I felt quite at home and welcome. It has that sort of atmosphere that few places locally produce, which remain me of some of my old uni haunts. The music wasn't booming out from speakers and the venue had a good amount of people swilling about. The worst thing when reviewing is when your the only person in the place and you can hear a pin drop. The staff were all really friendly  when we were ordering our first drinks before they could be 'warned' I was reviewing the place, which can cause an artificial reaction.

We decided to skip starters and go straight for the mains which offered (at time of visiting) a limited selection, whilst still providing good meat / vegetarian options. To be honest, I prefer the smaller menu when somewhere initially starts offering food as it can prove unwieldy to the kitchen and I'd prefer somewhere doing 10-15 dishes well rather then 30+ to an okay standard. I point out here that since visiting Aura have added several new additions to the menu including a really tasty looking handmade steak and ale pie and that classic favourite of a generation, ham, egg and chips. I like the new choices as they offer something more 'earthy' and 'British'.

I went for the Char Grilled Steak Ciabatta, with onion confit and beer mustard mayonaise. It came with a portion of fries, small side salad and coleslaw, all presented sumptuously and separated by individual serving bowls. I like this touch as I've lost count of conversation I've overhead when something like coleslaw was added to a dish without the customer saying they didn't want it and the whole plate having to be returned etc. It's also a very clean, considered way of presenting food, rather then shoving a great pile of different food types all on one plate.

It was all really very good. All the food was hot and ready to be devoured (I hate when half the plate is luke warm to cold as it shows inadequacies in the kitchen). The salad was light, fresh with a lively dressing and the coleslaw was creamy and crunchy, just what I would expect when eating out. The whole plate was bursting with flavour and freshness, and I found myself skipping from one thing to another as I couldn't make up my mind which I liked more. The steak was probably the only thing I could pick fault with. I was offered rare or well done when I ordered so I opted for rare (I usually have my steak medium-rare so little to squabble about), but I did find it too chewy, especially towards the end of the meal. It tasted great still don't get me wrong, but I am a steak snob and I think offering a 'medium' option would eliminate this in the future.

Megan choose the Roast Chicken Salad, with coz, baby gem lettuce, garlic croutons, tomato and creamy dressing. I'll keep this part of the review relatively short, she ate it all and refused to share any of it with me. That should tell you enough, but for the more avid reader I will develop this somewhat but saying the presentation matched mine and again the chicken was flavoursome and tender, with the salad mirroring mine in freshness (not a limp leaf in sight!).

The evening developed when the live music started, being provided by Olivia Plus One at 10pm. I had seen Olivia performed once before, as Eponine in a local youth production of 'Les Mis', where I thought she was outstanding. Hearing her sing, years after that theatre production, I can safely say she's even better then she was before and is probably one of the best local singers of her age in the area. I can make this bold claim having performed in over 35 local theatre productions, gone to countless open mics and now owning my own theatre company, so I'd like to think myself relatively qualified.




The sound quality and acoustics at Aura lend itself well to this kind of music and scope, with the place full by the time the first song was being sung. In hindsight I'm not that surprised, not only does Aura look good on the outside, but offering live music on a Friday night in a central town location is a good attraction. Most open mic nights for instance that I go to are on when the pubs are generally quiet and to draw a few extra people in. Maybe they should try mixing the open mics with live music events such as this to develop an audience so that the people who are in on a busy weekend night return during the week if they enjoyed themselves.

Speaking of events I will draw everyone's attention to a charity costume party that Aura are holding on the 1st of November (see poster), with tickets now just £5. As many of you will know I am a massive advocate for helping charities and local community groups and I think events such as these should be be supported to the max. The theatre company I run, C&D Productions (please 'Like' our page on FB by clicking here) has helped countless groups since our inception and I firmly believe that places like Aura doing their bit is a fantastic move in the right direction. I'd urge anyone not doing anything to pop down on the 1st of Nov, there will be a street raffle and all sorts happening.

Before concluding I would like to make a special note of the two young ladies that I dealt with most, Chenience and Becci. Both were amazingly friendly, welcoming and warm, not just to me but to everyone else I could see them speaking with, Chenience in particular was a delight. So, would I go back? Yes! The whole evening was great fun, the food was generally top notch, the music added a really good additional layer of atmosphere and the whole place seemed alive. Also there wasn't a bad pint to be seen and I think Aura offers really good value for money. Well done all, a great success!

* As always I would love if everyone could visit our Facebook page, 'Like' it and continue to support all our work in the community. We've got a bunch of great plays coming up from 'A Christmas Carol' in December, to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' in February, We are always looking for actors/actresses, or people to help backstage and even direct. If you know anyone who might be interested invite them to 'Like' our page and email us on chris@cd-productions.co.uk - Thanks for reading all and I hope you had a great weekend!

Important links - www.facebook.com/CDProductions.theatre  /  www.cd-productions.co.uk