Choosing a restaurant for dinner can be really tricky, especially when there’s so much choice in London! A few weeks ago I went out for dinner with my friend Sophie, and we decided to try Gaucho in Smithfield which is a stone’s throw away from Farringdon station.
I’ve always fancied trying Gaucho as there’s quite a few of them across London and the set menu really impressed me. It’s three courses for £26.50 and this even includes a glass of bubbles on arrival and unlike most restaurants in London, it’s available on a Friday night so we booked a table and sauntered on down to Farringdon to try it.
Gaucho – What We Ordered
It was really quiet when we arrived but thankfully it soon busied up pretty quickly. We were quickly served with a glass of fizz which was included in the set menu we were having while we pondered the menu and after ordering, we were served some bread while we waited which was really good, some of it was cheesy!
For starters, we both chose empanadas; I ordered the beef and humid empanada and my friend Sophie chose the sun dried tomato and mozzarella empanada. They were served as a single empanada which was quite large, alongside a little pot of tomato sauce. It was tasty but not too filling, leaving plenty of space for the main event.
What I liked about the set menu at Gaucho is that there’s some really good dishes available which sometimes isn’t always the case on restaurants set menus. My friend and I both decided to push the boat out and ordered the Lomo which is a 200g fillet cut of meat and comes at a supplementary cost of £6 but we thought that given the cost of the set menu, this is still quite good value for money. The steaks are both served with a choice of chips or seasonal salad (we both chose chips – duh) and a choice of béarnaise sauce or chimichurri sauce. We’d finished our fizz by this point and chose a bottle of Argentinian Malbec (£28.50) to accompany out steak.
The steak was cooked to absolute perfection – I like mine rare and it was wonderfully pink inside. We both polished off our steaks but couldn’t finish our chips and decided that it would’ve been better if one of us had ordered chips and the other should’ve ordered a salad and we should have shared!
For dessert, we were both quite disappointed that the Dulce De Leche Flan wasn’t available as it sounds incredible. Instead, I chose the affogato which was served as an espresso with a scoop of dulce de leche ice cream and you pour the hot espresso over the ice cream which was delicious. Sophie ordered the Yuzu marinated mixed berries which I have to say looked amazing – it was a giant pile of whipped lime flavoured cream, loads of bright pink raspberries and a piece of pink raspberry meringue. Now I’m not a fruit person but even I thought it looked pretty great.
Gaucho – 4/5
A great steak meal, and really great value for money with the set menu.
Food – 5/5
Service – 4/5
Decor / Ambience – 4/5
The total cost for two people was £107.44 including service and drinks.
Have you visited Gaucho before? Feeling Inspired? Check out my London Restaurant Hit List!
Gaucho, Smithfield
93A Charterhouse St
Barbican
London
EC1M 6HL
