La Belle Aurore: Oh So Creamy Crab Cakes

How much would you be willing to spend on crab cakes? Really good crab cakes. Crab cakes so creamy and so bold that they melt in your mouth before their flavor has finished exploding on your tongue. If you love crab cakes—and you have the extra cash with which to indulge—then La Belle Aurore in Niantic has just the dish for you.

At $14 for one or $24 a pair, I sadly could not afford to eat these crab cakes very often if I weren’t getting paid to write about them. But if I had the dough, I’d be a regular. La Belle Aurore didn’t waste my time with delicate subtleties. Everything on the plate tasted strong, every ingredient made conversation, and I went home talking about it.

Unlike the bready, sandwich-style crab cakes served at millions of seafood joints, these were pillows of creaminess. A fluffy, cloudlike mound of finely shredded crab, perhaps pureed, burst through a lightly browned crust. The first forkful revealed bits of red bell pepper and morsels of red onion. The first bite jolted me awake with the nose-warming sensation of horseradish, which was actually mustard. No bland, bready flavors here. 

A dollop of chipotle aioli on the dish seemed like overkill. Sharply garlicky and delicious though it was, it could add nothing of worth to a crab cake that already pushed the limits of intensity and creaminess by itself. Perhaps the cachet of all things “chipotle” helps justify the price of the dish, or perhaps the kitchen intended me to eat the aioli with the vegetables served on the side. These too tasted superb without it, however.

When my plate arrived, frothy little bubbles were still bursting upon sliver-thin slices of pan-fried fingerling potatoes, baby carrots, and purple heirloom cauliflower. Each vegetable seemed to have bathed in butter, as if cooked in the same pan as a juicy steak. The potatoes were browned beautifully, even blackened in a few spots, and a few were as crispy as chips. A shake or two of salt produced perfection. The sautéed cauliflower and carrots were remarkably crunchy, and therefore so much better than the softened, overcooked vegetables that the rest of the world seems to enjoy. These crispy and crunchy textures contrasted obviously with the crab cakes. 

The crab cakes are on the menu for June at La Belle Aurore. The restaurant changes its menu by the month because it makes most of its dishes with locally grown, seasonal ingredients. This includes the vegetables that came with my crab cakes (though not the crabmeat itself), which no doubt contributes to the high price of the dish. When I ordered only one, my waitress seemed concerned and asked if I was sure I didn’t want two. I could have eaten two, of course, but I have bills to pay.

It never fails—local ingredients always taste great but always appear on expensive menus. This gets me fired up, because for all the talk these days about eating local for the sake of the environment and our health, local farms and the fancy restaurants that buy from them seem content serving a niche market of relatively wealthy customers. 

I can’t help but wonder if the “eat local” mantra has more to do with status than with social consciousness. Maybe this is nobody’s fault, maybe it’s just economic reality, but until it changes, I’ll have to save La Belle Aurore for special occasions. If you can handle the price, though, God bless you. Go and get the crab cakes before July arrives.

Crab cakes  $14/$24
La Belle Aurore
75 Pennsylvania Avenue, Niantic, CT  06357
(860) 739-6767