Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant
91 Gouger Street
Adelaide South Australia 5000
W www.gauchos.com.au
E info@gauchos.com.au for information only do not use for reservations
T +61 8 8231 2299
F +61 8 8212 8185
OPEN Lunch Monday to Friday 11.30 am till 3.00 pm, dinner 7 days 5.30 pm till late

FOOD Recession? Where? Certainly not at Gaucho’s, which is a restaurant, that is the envy of every restaurateur in Adelaide. Lunches may be on the quiet side, but every night Gaucho’s is packed. They deliver a consistent dining experience that is the key to the success of most great restaurants; whether they are serving a $10 bowl of noodles, haute cuisine, best Italian or the best steak which Gaucho’s certainly does. A lot of diners might not have noticed a distinct shift to ’grass fed’ as against ’grain fed’ but in recent years it has become clear that the best beef is ’grass fed’ and the price is reflected on the menus of the best steak houses in Australia. If you really want to know what a government con grain fed beef has been you should read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma — cows are ruminores and in actual fact do not have the digestive system to really prosper on corn, grain mash it a different thing again. Of course American corn no longer needs propping up with government subsidies and has a far more useful purpose as an alternative fuel. Is grass-fed simply yet another government con to keep an area of agriculture in business, no it is pure meat science vastly improved in the last ten years with DNA testing, strict government grading and machines that exactly detect marbling and much more.
’Air-aged’, ’air-dried’, aged and stating the length of aging is to resurrect a practice that has been observed by the world’s best restaurants for centuries and known in the Chinese kitchen for many more centuries. These methods need some explanation because they are directly relative to the cost the restaurant must charge. Anyone who has eaten at Neil Perry’s Melbourne Rockpool restaurant will have seen the massive exquisitely marbled fatty slabs of beef carefully aging in temperature controlled display cabinets. This aging breaks down the meat reducing it to a wonderful firmness of texture and a tenderness that cannot be achieved by any other method. The method involves considerable waste, as the meat must be trimmed again of the dry outer crust before it can be cooked. The longer it is air-aged/dried the more the trim and the more the portion has to cost. Listing the grower and region has long been a practice of good restaurants and we also note that Gaucho’s lists a single Wagyu steak, 300g Blackmore, marble score 6-7, grain fed 500 days, air dried for 14 days from the Alexandra Stud in Victoria ($80). For those who baulk at paying this price there is an abundance of options starting at half the price, but it is important to understand that this premium feeding has to be paid for. Australia’s best Wagyu is only be found in Japan’s greatest restaurants. The very great difference between Japanese and Australian diners (in the main) is that Japanese diners are happy to have 100g of absolute perfection and will embellish that perfection with other ingredients, where as Australia has such a culture of massive meat portions the idea of a 100g steak is somehow reprehensible. As the price of food rises we are all going to have to learn a little from the Japanese culture and if we want to eat the best of everything there is no doubt we will be looking at a smaller portion size.
This philosophy has not found its way through the doors of Gaucho’s just yet and steaks range from large to an enormous one–kilo. T–bones start at 500g ($51.50) and range through to one kilo ($73.50) and perhaps our only complaint about Gaucho’s is that even 300g steaks are huge. We love the fact that steaks come plain, not messed about with and always think about the person who wrote to us complaining she ’didn’t get anything’ with her steak. Get anything what? There is something utterly gorgeous about a good steak, garlic, lemon, their fab Chimichurri sauce and fried potatoes, unadulterated protein and carbohydrate that is such a primeval dining experience no matter how sophisticated a diner you are you just long for it from time to time.
Gaucho’s might be the hallowed hall of carnivores, but piscatarians and vegetarians are also well catered for. Seafood from the grill is exceptional, their prawns the huge local gulf prawns are so delicious they don’t need any nutty embellishment except perhaps for a lemon. On our last visit, other seafood specials were heavenly local snapper and Port Lincoln mussels, and a gentle reminder from the service staff that oysters were fantastic again. South Australian oysters are at their best from March until October and Gaucho’s kitchen is famous for their Oysters Diablo. Covered with a spicy sauce flavoured with their famous house–made Chimichurri sauce, topped with bacon and grilled, their oysters are the Argentinean Kilpatrick.
One of the reasons we especially love Gaucho’s is that they cook offal well. Kidneys and blood pudding are absolute favourites. Kidneys and oysters are brilliant natural sources of iron, so if you are feeling a little flat we highly recommend a serve of their excellent walnut studded blood pudding, grilled kidneys and a dozen oysters. We suspect that one of the reasons that oysters have mythically become regarded as an aphrodisiac (a fallacy) is their iron content and the zing it can give one.
Gaucho’s has one of the most mixed clienteles of any restaurant in Adelaide. Food-and wine-obsessed winemakers, chefs, big blokes who seem to eat nothing but meat, bikers, dainty elegant well–dressed hoity–toity ladies hoeing into 500g T–bones, and tourists lured in by the security of a packed restaurant and the divine meaty aromas that emanate from their kitchen. Gaucho’s is an Adelaide institution and we love it!

WINE Meat and red wine have a symbiotic relationship and one that is widely respected at Gaucho’s, where they offer their clientele a broad selection of excellent red wines that are meant to go with meat. Their list has depth and heart and a price range that accommodates the small spend equally as well as it does the indulgent spend.

OWNERS/MANAGERS — Tony and Joe Puntureri
CHEF — Chris Robinson (pictured right)
RESTAURANT MANAGER — Jay Hunter

6 May, 2009