Gaucho London review: I went to a steak restaurant and had fish

I went to Gaucho in Hampstead and it was the first time I’d ever been to any of the Gaucho restaurants – but I was so impressed that I’ll definitely be going back, soon!

There are Gaucho restaurants all over London, including in Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Richmond and many others.

The newest of the chain’s London hotspots is in Covent Garden, situated in an extension of the historic Royal Opera House.

Like with all of Gaucho’s restaurants, the one in Hampstead is up-market, classy and elegant, and you can tell the second you walk in that you’re going to get some really good food.

I went on a Thursday evening, and it was relatively busy both in the stunning bar area, and the large restaurant area where there is a lot of seating available.

The restaurant has a cool, open kitchen feature and all the waiters and waitresses were extremely friendly and helpful.

I’m not much of a meat eater, and often tend to go for the fish option in a restaurant, so I decided that I’d go against the norm and do the same at Gaucho.

There’s a huge menu, and it’s really good that the restaurant does cater for all flavour preferences and dietary requirements.

There’s also a really big drinks menu, with extensive wine offerings and delicious-sounding cocktails – which isn’t a surprise considering you are met with a spectacular feature bar as you walk into the restaurant.

I had the lychee blossom cocktail which has gin and cherry blossom in among other things – lychee, gin and cherry are three of my favourite ingredients in a cocktail as for me, the sweeter the better, and this one didn’t disappoint.

For starter my boyfriend had the scallops and I had the seabass ceviche which comes with avocado, arepa bread and picante rojo.

The bread tasted fried, and absolutely delicious, and it worked really well with the avocado-y and slightly spiced fresh fish on top.

The portion was really generous and I can’t pretend that I wasn’t actually full after it, but with a mains offering like Gaucho there was no stopping me.

Our waitress was really helpful and brought out a board of meat to explain each steak offering to us, and it helped my boyfriend to decide after he had already said he would order them all if he could.

In the end he went for the 500g ribeye with peppercorn sauce, and finished it without a second of hesitation – he said it was a “bl**** great steak if he’d ever had one”!

In one of my most controversial decisions apparently, I had the seabass – and OMG.

I have fish in quite a lot of restaurants but I’d safely say this is one of the best seabass dishes I’ve ever had.

It was chargrilled to perfection, filleted with no bones, and came with two fillets.

We had our mains with creamy mashed potato, spinach and broccoli and they were just as delicious and just as good in portion size.

You know when you’re eating and you just enjoy every single mouthful – that’s exactly how I felt.

I can’t quite begin to explain how full I was but when there’s hot cookie dough on a dessert menu, there’s pretty much nothing that could ever stop me from ordering it.

It was heaven on a plate, and I will definitely be going back there just for the cookie dough.

I paired it with a white chocolate and passion fruit cocktail which came with a cute little cone of popcorn on the side.

I was absolutely STUFFED, but oh so satisfied.