Café Aurora Lets Us in on the Streamlined Side of Chefs Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar

Café Aurora
G/F Pacific Star Building, Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue corner Makati Avenue, Makati City
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cafeauroraph
Opening soon

(SPOT.ph) Maybe we’re being biased, but Asia’s home to some of the best food around if we do say so ourselves. You can’t beat the sheer diversity of dishes and flavor profiles you can find in our neighboring countries—from the spice-heavy curries of India to the umami-rich donburi of Japan to the heady soups of Singapore and everything in between. It’s this same verve that’s evident at Café Aurora, the highly anticipated dining spot of Chefs Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar slated to open this February.

Also read: Best of Manila + More: 50 Great Restaurants of 2022

Here’s what you can expect from the highly anticipated dine-in spot from the chefs of Hey Handsome:

Even when flying out isn’t realistic, there are a number of local restos you can rely on to bring that distinct Asian sense of exuberance to the palate. In the mid- to late 2010s, those would’ve included Your Local and Hey Handsome—two homegrown spots then headed by Santos and Vilar that did justice to the vivid yet soulful tastes emblematic of the continent. Your Local is now under different management, while Hey Handsome has sadly closed due to leasing issues. The two then worked under the Standard Hospitality Group for a while, until the pandemic set in.

Come COVID era, the duo launched delivery-only venture Sambar which they operated literally from Santos’ small condo kitchen, using a small induction stovetop to cook, well, pretty much everything. “We did everything—ordering, marketing, as in lahat, cleaning… lahat, kami lang and the delivery guy,” Santos relays with a laugh. (Sambar remains open, but mostly for pop-ups from here on.) And though the two had plans to open a physical chicken shop, this, too, had to take a backseat due to logistical concerns.

Fast forward to February 2022: working hand-in-hand with Attorney Nilo Divina—seasoned corporate and banking lawyer and managing partner of leading law firm DivinaLaw—the two were given the opportunity to open a new brick-and-mortar spot at the firm’s home base in Makati. It won't be long before it finally opens its doors.

Café Aurora gets its moniker from that of Divina’s mother and caters in large part to the corporate folks in the area. It’s for this reason that it goes for a savvy, brooding look in stark contrast to the more hip, industrial feel of their previous restaurants. You’ll see sleek black chairs, pristine white tables, pendant lights, wine bottles on display, and wooden accents around the dimly lit space—the back of which houses a bar. Still, Vilar shares, they’ve ultimately got the true-blue food lovers in mind and at heart—evident in the warmth of the Café Aurora team, and the striking impact of their food. Think rich, soul-satisfying plates true to the sensibilities of their cultures of origin, with modern touches as called for.

Elegant as Café Aurora’s interiors look—you wouldn’t feel out of place dressed in a business suit here—their food remains approachable. By that, we don’t mean simple or one-dimensional; this is the Santos-Vilar duo after all (plus their accompanying team, some of whom they’ve been working with since the Your Local days!), and they take no shortcuts.

Sauces, curry pastes, creams, and the like are made from scratch and in-house; the team takes the time to cook and braise dishes low and slow where applicable, too. This outlook makes for an especially soul-satisfying Adobo inspired by Taiwanese lu rou fan. Pork and shiitake mushrooms are cooked low and slow in shallot oil, as is traditional, rendering the meat melt-in-the-mouth tender and full of savory-sweet soul. Pickled cucumbers brighten the mix, while the rice captures all the juices of the meat—and for added richness, you're more than welcome to prod open the ajitsuke tamago perched in the center.

In that same vein, the Rendang—patterned after the dry (rather than saucy) Malay style of the dish—is potent on the spices, with every bite of the borderline-shredded meat packing in plenty of depth of flavor. Rounding out the plate are multigrain rice, sambal matah (a spiced and aromatic condiment), and serunding (a floss-like coconut-based side) that you can dip into as you please to mix up the flavors—part and parcel of Southeast Asian food’s appeal is the customizability, after all.

Notably, there’s a more streamlined sensibility present here that OG fans of the duo will quickly pick up. Vilar admits their approach at Café Aurora is more “pulido,” or straightforward than their other restaurants, where they would layer on component after component in most dishes. Santos likewise explains how the said philosophy in previous ventures meant their regulars “didn’t really show up regularly,” likely given the overwhelming complexity of their dishes. This time around they do hope to see folks on the regular with dishes you won't easily tire of.

By no means does that mean they’re holding back on flavor. They retain their way of delivering dimension to the taste buds, albeit with more refinement and attention to detail. Café Aurora’s Pomelo Salad beautifully illustrates this. Wing beans (a.k.a. sigarilyas, blanched just until a touch) make for a crisp yet tender base; then prawns (poached yet kept juicy) and chunks of pomelo deliver juiciness and sweetness. The salad is then tossed in a coconut cream-based dressing that’s part rich, part tangy, part savory, and all-around spunky.

Less is likewise more in the Tartare, their take of which draws from Korean yukhoe. This is fairly straight-to-the-point stuff with raw beef tenderloin and pear in a sesame-soy dressing and an egg yolk—but if the clean yet rich taste of the beef, the subtle sweetness of the pear, and the subtle umami of the dressing is anything to go by, everything fits together perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle.

And if there’s just one dish you must try at Café Aurora, it’s the Salmon Donburi. Granted, it’s hard not to make comparisons with the dish of the same name Santos was known for during his days at Your Local. The Café Aurora version is utterly divine in its own right. It comes closer to a classic Japanese bara chirashi performed with great excellence; think perfectly succulent cubes of house-cured and smoked salmon, balls of ikura (salmon eggs) and mentaiko (pollock roe) that burst with umami on the tongue; and fluffy steamed rice mixed with shiitake mushrooms and corn. The bowl’s simplicity allows each individual part to shine—and shine they do, both in themselves and in the pleasant way everything comes together.

Still, the duo’s creativity is still very much present, and you’ll still find distinctive takes on classics that are wholly their own. The simply named Wings take after the modern Singaporean dish of Marmite pork ribs—pork ribs doused in sauce with the British spread known as Marmite, known for its strong, savory taste—with the chicken pieces stuffed with rice, shiitake mushrooms, and corn then fried to a crisp and given a Marmite glaze.

The good-for-sharing Hamachi is part-classic, with the fish’s collar grilled for a charred exterior and moist interior—and part-novel with its satay marinade and accompaniments of peanut sauce and grilled lime. Don’t forget the Meatball, which reimagines tsukune—the Japanese chicken meatballs traditionally grilled and served in skewers (a “comfort food” for Santos’ son!)—as a monster-sized meatball glazed with yuzu tare and perched atop multigrain rice.

The restaurant’s playfulness also makes for a standout lineup of drinks, the highlight of which are cocktails by Head Mixologist Jomer Calangian (with whom they’ve been working since their Your Local days). The Asian motif is present in tipples like the Kebaya (similar to a whisky sour, but with ginger and turmeric), 1834 (think earl-grey dominant, spiked iced tea), and Cucumber Salad (imagine a G&T that’s potent on the cucumber, spiked with makrut lime and Thai chili)—all perfect (and designed to be paired) with their food.

Come dessert time, Pastry Chef Dan Rosales doesn’t shy away from displaying his nostalgic side—and of those around him. The PB and J take after its namesake—his “favorite sandwich as a kid”—transformed into a stunning sweet whose glossy crimson exterior makes way to a thick peanut-butter cheesecake with a touch of saltiness for contrast. Meanwhile, the Pavlova pays an ode to Divina’s love for local candy Choc Nut; crack open its meringue shell and you’re met with an interior of passionfruit cremeaux, Choc Nut custard, and roasted hazelnuts. (Which make for a clever tangy-decadent-nutty mix, BTW.)

A sentimentality for the classic Chocolate Mousse cake of Red Ribbon also inspires the Mousse, though Rosales brings a citrusy-bitter element into the mix with the addition of an Earl Grey cream. Lastly, remixed Asian is the name of the game for the Kacang—a fruit-forward version of the Malaysian dessert, with a granita base flavored with red grape and yuzu, topped with azuki beans, kaya ice cream, and puffed rice. Have your dessert with their coffee drinks by Head Barista Adrian Canlas rounding out the menu—which includes the likes of the vanilla-heavy Death Cream and double shot espresso-spiked Milo Dinosaur.

Café Aurora is no carbon copy of Santos and Vilar’s previous ventures, and that’s okay—more than okay. It’s its own distinct entity. Call it a mere attempt to adapt to new surroundings, if you will, but in many ways, the refined direction of Santos and Vilar also alludes to their maturity. It's the kind of maturity that doesn't disregard its roots—they're not letting go of their fun side—and instead takes a deeper look at, and improves on, the parts of the puzzle that matter the most.

Photos by Majoy Siason

UPDATE (February 3, 2023, 4:37 p.m.): The café has reached out to clarify Divina's position and the reasons for Hey Handsome's closing. The article has been updated to reflect this development.

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