Gaucho Tower Bridge

SE1 2AP

London

2 More London Riverside

A five minute walk from London Bridge tube, this Gaucho restaurant gives its location away with a stunning view of Tower Bridge. Arriving for our evening meal, we got a little caught up in the view of this landmark bridge with its gleaming stonework and pale blue steel glinting against the city lights.

Having peeked at pictures on Gaucho's website, I had wondered if the cow hide covering the walls would be a little too WAG, but the restaurant was full of understated style when we set foot inside. The low lighting made the illuminated view of Tower Bridge all the more eye-catching from our seats, and we got down to the business of scouring the menu. The choice of dishes leans, as you might expect, towards the Argentine steak that Gaucho is well known for. Seafood dishes also pepper the menu with choices such as Argentine baby scallops, handpicked crab and shrimp salad on offer. It really goes without saying, but this is a place for meat lovers. There aren't a huge array of vegetarian choices on offer as you might expect, so it's worth bearing this in mind if you have a veggie in your group.

Whilst we were debating what to tuck into, our waitress deftly placed our cocktails in front of us. Inspired by Argentine mixologist of the decade, Tato Giavannoni, we chose a Carino, bursting with passionfruit and strawberry, and a zesty Caipirinha from Gaucho's cocktail list. We got chatting as you do over cocktails, and soon enough, we were scratching our heads, overwhelmed by the choice on the menu, when our waitress came back to take our order.

Before we knew it, our smoothly efficient waitress returned with a chopping board, bending under the weight of glistening steak cuts. If you just can't decide what to go for, or need a helping hand with the various cuts of steak available, the platter is a useful pre-dinner education. If you just love staring longingly at raw steak, it's pretty good for that too. This is not the place to bring your vegetarian Mother-in-law, unless of course, you don't really like her. For carnivores however, Gaucho is just the ticket.

We opted for 300g servings of fillet (Bife de Lomo) and rib eye (Bife de Ancho) with peppercorn sauce. Our only complaint was that we could have devoured 400g portions, but we'll know what to do next time around. The fillet was meltingly soft, and the rib eye as hoped, packed a very tasty amount of flavour.

This riverside Gaucho spot is roomy enough to accommodate sizeable afterwork crowds, but it's stunning view lends it perfectly to intimate dinners for two, or a stylish backdrop for catching up with the girls over cocktails and hunks of steak. As we finished off glasses of full-bodied Malbec, our girl talk continued while we put away sweet courses of Don Pedro (ice cream, whisky and walnuts), and coffee & chocolate cheesecake. Seamless service and knowledgeable staff, paired with very decent steak and a wonderful riverside view of London, made us reluctant to leave this restaurant and keen to return.

For more information, please visit: http://www.gauchorestaurants.co.uk/

**Reviewed by:** Helenka Bednar