TABERNA AUREA
The Golden Quay · Inn and Tavern · Harbour Front, Lacusum
"The Aureus is where Lacusum’s commercial deals are started and sometimes concluded, never formally and always over something expensive. I have eaten here four times. The food is better than any comparable establishment in Nova Romae and the wine is exclusively Vinum Insulare, which the proprietor acquires through a halfling commercial arrangement that the exchange session’s participants would find professionally interesting. The private dining room on the upper floor has hosted conversations whose outcomes have moved grain futures prices. No one in the room on those occasions would have said so at the time."
The Taberna Aurea is the Harbour Front’s premium inn and dining establishment: the place where commercial deals begin over a good meal, where senatorial representatives staying in Lacusum for the exchange session take their evening meals, where the Mercatorum faction’s Lacusum families host the clients they want to impress, and where Vara Swiftledger has a standing weekly dinner booking for the private room that she has used every week for eight years without ever apparently discussing business in it. The proprietor, Servilia Aurea, fifty-three, thirty years in the role, maintains the specific establishment that a commercial city’s top-tier social functions require: excellent food, appropriate discretion, and rooms that are comfortable enough that guests have no reason to leave before they have said what they came to say.
Design
Four storeys on the Harbour Front’s premier stretch, its ground floor the main dining room, its second floor the private dining suites, its upper floors twelve premium guest rooms. The main dining room has the Harbour Front’s best ground-floor harbour view, its tables positioned so that every guest can see the bay without obstructing their neighbour’s sight line. The private dining room on the second floor’s western suite — Vara’s regular booking — has a direct view of the grain exchange’s entrance. The connection between this view and Vara’s commercial intelligence function has not been commented upon by Servilia in thirty years of hosting the booking.
Special Properties
Twelve premium guest rooms on the third and fourth floors, each with harbour views from the third floor and city views from the fourth. Booked consistently throughout the exchange session season; available with notice outside session peak. The rate is the highest of any establishment in the city, which Servilia considers accurate pricing for the commercial intelligence value of her clientele’s dinner conversation rather than simply for the bed and food.
Rooms Available
12 premium rooms, third and fourth floors.
Harbour views (third floor) and city views (fourth floor).
Exchange session season: book ahead.
Off-season: available at short notice
Wine
Exclusively Vinum Insulare, current and selected back vintages from the Lacus Aureus estate’s recommended years. Servilia’s arrangement with the halfling merchant families bypasses the exchange session allocation system. The estate families know this and have not objected.
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