There’s no such thing as a free lunch – or so the adage goes. But at Agua, you can have a three course lunch for… well, not for free - that would not be good business sense - but for really not very much.
The Business Lunch set menu may well be one the best value meals you will find in Cayman. For just $15.95 you get a choice of three appetizers, three main courses and a dessert. And for an extra $5 you can wash it all down with a chilled glass of wine.
The concept of a set menu may set alarm bells ringing for some. In Europe set menus, typically cobbled together from whatever leftovers the chef needs to use up on any given day, are generally good value but don’t pretend to offer the same quality of cuisine as the a la carte options.
Not so at Agua. The choices on the business lunch menu are all dishes that appear on the regular lunch menu and the quality and portion size is the same, whichever menu you order from.
While other restaurants wax and wane in popularity, Agua’s consistency in producing excellent food with great service has ensured that in the short year and a half since it opened, the restaurant has not budged from its position as one of the most popular places to eat on the island. Owners Walter and Christiano make it their business to ensure that standards are never compromised. If they are unable to source the quality ingredients they want, they prefer to take items off the menu than use inferior products.
The business menu changes daily but appetisers always include a soup of the day, a salad and a seafood dish. For the entrée one can go with the fish of the day (customizing it by choosing your preferred side and sauce), a pasta dish and a chicken dish. On any given day therefore one could choose from, for example, homemade lasagne, chicken curry or fresh snapper. Dessert is home-made ice cream made in Agua’s gelato machine.
If three courses in the middle of the day sound like too much to stomach, the extensive regular lunch menu is always available, with a choice of salads, ceviches, tiraditos, sandwiches, meat and pasta dishes. The lunch menu also includes a “lunch suggestions” category, with dishes that are somewhere between an appetizer and an entrée. These, Walter explains, can either be shared as an appetizer or they can be a meal in themselves.
Deciding to mix things up a bit, we chose to share one business lunch and one a la carte lunch. First up we had ceviche mixto from the business menu, a combination of shrimp, octopus and snapper in a lime and yellow pepper sauce. If summer had a flavour it would be this – fresh, light and tangy. This was paired with a sample of the three tiraditos (wahoo, tuna and octopus each with its own sauce) and the irresistible tuna tartare. Made from local tuna, the fresh fish is diced, mixed with avocado and drizzled with sinfully rich, heady truffle oil - a combination of flavours that is both decadent and delicious.
A penne amatriciana from the business menu and a caprese salad from the “lunch suggestions” followed. The tomato-based sauce for the pasta dish tasted as rich and vibrant as it looked and the caprese salad was , frankly, a revelation. Some caprese salads can be a little on the dull side, when made with under-ripe tomatoes and cheap mozzarella. This salad however, was made from genuine buffalo mozzarella, imported directly from Italy, and it had a wonderful firm yet creamy texture and a very slightly salty taste. The very generous portion of mozzarella was perfectly complimented by the peppery arugula and a sweet emulsion of tomatoes and olive oil.
One half of the feast was rounded off with Agua’s home-made ice cream. To make the highly recommended strattiacella (chocolate chip) flavour, explains Walter, one person stirs the basic ice cream mix while another pours melted chocolate into it, with hardens and breaks up on contact, producing a slightly crunchy texture with the taste of real dark chocolate running through it. The other half of the feast ended with - on our server’s recommendation - the mille feuille: impossibly light and crisp, fresh summer fruits and whipped cream nestled between layers of puff pastry.
All in all, a wonderful meal – and a wonderful deal. At Agua you get the casually elegant atmosphere, service that is attentive but never overbearing, and three courses of carefully prepared food, perfectly balanced flavours and top quality ingredients. All for the price of a burger and beer. Which would you choose? WH
For more information, call 949-2482 or visit
agua.ky.