Translating "au"

[Adam Kim]

Au is a contraction of à and le. Usually, I think of au as something spatial (describing places). Does au also describe meanings "in the style of" or "in the manner of" like à la?

Sometimes French prepositions are very tricky.

Thank you.

[stu harris]

au jus, au gratin would be examples of this. A masculine noun cannot be preceded by à la.

[stu harris]

Note that in those two examples, the au is more like with than in the style of.