Steak Out

If you're a steak lover and you haven't visited a Gaucho restaurant then you should be ashamed of yourself. I've had a lot of great, good, mediocre and awful steaks from all around the world and Gaucho's steaks rank very close to the top.

There are Gauchos all around London including the West End, Hampstead, Canary Wharf and now the O2 has got one too. The O2 has really proven its worth in recent years but it was definitely wanting a bit more in the restaurants department and the steak house should make a perfect pre-concert treat. I, however, visited the chic Gaucho Restaurant in Sloane Avenue, home to the Chelsea fashionista and a number of city types.

When I came in and took a seat at the bar to wait for my date, a man with a sort of German-American accent, also alone at the bar was looking nervously at me. “You're not Natalia are you?” He asked. I told him that I wasn't. “Sorry,” he said. “Blind Date.” Aah. “I hope she's not vegetarian,” I said leaving him with a look of despair as my date walked in. “Good luck!”

For the sake of a balanced review I convinced myself that while my partner in food-tasting crime should get a steak I should go for something less cow-like. For the vegetarians and red meat haters I wanted to try something else.

After several helpings of the gorgeous cheese bread balls which are so ridiculously moreish that we asked for more - twice - came a soft and surprising starter of monkfish. The fish itself was perfectly moist and the pomegranate and citrus sauce accompanying it gave a pleasant kick.

As I was dilly dallying between sausage platters and salmon for my next course, the tray came. The tray, filled with slabs of steak came with a delightful waitress to explain it all; the rib-eye, best cooked medium to well done, the sirloin, the marinated steaks and the Bife De Lomo – the tenderest cut of all.

Sorry veggies, but I decided that if I came to Gaucho and had anything other than steak I was a bit of a moron.