For me, a perfectly cooked medium rare steak is just ambrosia. & Gaucho Leeds as fast become mine and Creatures go to place on payday for a blow out meal of awesome proportions. To begin, if you've not been to Gaucho before & like me, find the menu a little daunting, the staff will bring out a large wooden board adorned with the meat selections & take you through your options. Being a medium rare fan I found I can pretty much choose any of the steaks on offer, which really didn't help my choice!
So in the end I chose the Bife de Lomo fillet, hoping for a soft, melt in your mouth steak whilst Creature went with a steak marinated in garlic and herbs. With each steak you get the choice of a complimentary salad or chips, I can vouch that both choices are great. The salad has a lovely clean lemon and oil dressing & the chips are chick cut & perfect to dip in your chosen sauce.
Sauces are extra but I always need something to smother my meat and chips in, on this occasion I went with the smoked garlic hollandaise, & Creature chose his forever favorite peppercorn.
Before your meaty assault can begin, each meal spent with Gaucho is begun with a complimentary bread basket. Now for me, this is perfect, I have an absolute obsession with breads & discovering new favours, textures etc. So when I was first introduced to Gauchos bread selection, I was in heaven.
My favorite of the 3 breads on offer would be the warm lightly cheese flavoured balls. Gorgeous, melt in the mouth, cheesy balls of bread. It took a while, but I eventually figured out that they are called Pao de Queijo and found a recipe . These balls also go fantastically with the chimichurri dressing served on the side.
Gaucho make a pretty bold statement about how tender their steaks are, when you're given what can only be described as a butter knife to cut your meat. And I was sceptical at first, but my steak seriously did cut like butter & I have been blown away by all of the steaks I've sampled since discovering the Argentine restaurant. This most recent visit was by far the best steak I've had to date, the meat was seriously tender, perfectly cooked & the smoked garlic hollandaise was incredible!
So after my belly was full, my gin & tonic cocktail almost slurped, our waiter for the evening returned with the desert menu. & of course I couldn't refuse. I chose the smallest pud on the menu - A selection of truffles, which consists of 5 individual chocolates topped with, chilli, orange, salt, cocoa & coffee. I was a little taken back by the idea of salt or chilli with sweet chocolate, but I can whole heartedly say I enjoyed each and every truffle, by favorite of course being the coffee.
As you can tell from the review, I am 100% a Gaucho fanatic. However there is no escaping the fact that it is an expensive place to eat. The cheapest steak is £18.50 and with prices creeping up to a staggering £148. Gaucho is not somewhere you're likely to visit a lot. However as a payday treat or a place to celebrate a special occasion, Gaucho is my go to place!
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