Fine dining is a blind spot on Aurora’s culinary scene. The city is a mecca for ethnic cuisine and boasts more chain restaurants than a city twice its size could possibly need. But a unique, luxurious dinner? That’s a little tougher to find.
Still, none of that means you have to flee the city to splurge on that top-end find. One option is to head to the city’s southeastern edge.
Tucked in the Southlands Mall, Wine Experience Cafe boasts the sort of menu that Aurora diners have been cruising to Denver to get their hands on for years.
Chief among those is the grilled ribeye, a 12-ounce cut of Sterling Silver brand beef served with wasabi mashed potatoes, butter-poached carrots and a sage veal demi-glace drizzled on top. At $39, it’s one of the priciest dinners in town, and well worth it. And the experience lets Aurora foodies brag it up to friends when they meet in Denver.
Executive Chef Zachary Stillwell didn’t put this particular ribeye on the menu — it actually pre-dates his early 2015 arrival — but he’s a fan and created enough of them to know this is a good one. Stillwell brings plenty of fine-dining bona fides, too. Before Wine Experience, he was a chef at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, the Ritz-Carlton in Downtown Denver and St. Julien Hotel in Boulder. And before that, he learned his way around a top-notch kitchen under the guidance of a chef in England at a Michelin two-star establishment.
“Fine dining is the only thing I really know,” he says.
For a chef, taking a dish as common as the ribeye and finding a way to make it stand out is a challenge, but it’s one Stillwell embraces.
The first key to making this ribeye truly great, Stillwell says, is to never freeze the meat. Never. Ever. It has to be fresh. That’s tricky for a chef because being able to freeze food makes it easier to purchase larger quantities without worrying that they will go unused. But Stillwell insists on never freezing the meat, so he makes smaller food orders than he otherwise would, a trade-off that’s well worth it. The risk also means that on an unexpectedly busy night, you might run out.
Then, Stillwell says he looks for oodles of marbling. That fat that weaves its way through the cut of beef packs much of the flavor, so the more marbling the better.
Once he sprinkles salt and cracked black pepper on the cut, Stillwell turns the grill to the only acceptable setting for a perfectly grilled steak: Very hot.
“All the way,” he says as he lets the grill roar to about 500 degrees.
Once the steak is done Stillwell always lets it rest. That way the juices don’t gush out and make a mess on the plate.
That piece — the presentation — is important to Stillwell. It’s one of the details he likes about that wasabi mash. The hint of green contrasts with the other colors on the plate.
“I want it like art. Like visual art,” he said.
When he drizzles the demi-glace, Stillwell likes to finish with a little flourish, giving it a slight curve. He picked up that move at the Stanley, and his crew have taken to calling it the “Stanley Circle.”
But now, it’s an Aurora arc, the symbol of a city coming full circle among sister cities in the metro area. There are a growing number of restaurants such as Wine Experience, catering to palates and tastes demanding something more, better and unique, including The Bent Fork and The Summit. Aurora is proud of a long list of ethnic and unique restaurants that offer up street Thai food and Cuban treats. But when it comes to a long night of wine and dine, the city’s few offerings at least help alleviate Aurora’s growing pains.
Some of us used to dine at Wine Experience a few times a month, then something happened, not sure what, but the place changed. No longer white linen tablecloths, just plain wooden tables, the beautiful wine glasses were still apparent, but without the tablecloths, well, it just wasn’t the same. The cutbacks were evident in the food also, we haven’t been back for years now.
My wife and I enjoy our visits to Wine Experience Café. The waitstaff is courteous and attentive and we always look forward to our wine chats with the owner, Eldon, who visits our table often. Chef Stillwell’s menu is delectable and his passion always shows through in the preparation and presentation of our food. For guests who may not have visited in a while, I wholeheartedly encourage you to stop in soon. Wine Experience is a jewel of the Aurora restaurant “scene.”