Though it’s made its name on the quality of its mighty medley of Malbecs, now the three-decade-old Gaucho restaurant group has launched a cocktail selection to echo the quality of its wine list.
Intended to encapsulate the spirit of Argentina, drinks were designed by the former director of the World’s 50 Best Bars and Restaurants awards-turned-marketing-manager Mark Sansom alongside bar operations ace, Theo Konstantopoulos.
The duo spent nine months recording the results on a resulting flavour map according to intensity and savouriness. They simultaneously equipped locations, including 12 in London, with hospital-grade centrifuges, dehydrators, and homogenisers.
I met Konstantopoulos one sunny Friday afternoon in the chilled haven that is Gaucho, Sloane Avenue, to whittle down my favourites.
Heightening the bond betwixt bartender and chef, while celebrating the main, beefy act for which guests make their reservations, the wagyu martini unites vodka enriched with wagyu fat for texture and smoke from the chargrill with Renais, the grape-based gin of Emma Watson and her brother, Alex. Subject to brightening bitters, the entirely clear though impactful, appetising drink is finished with three perfumed drops of toasted lemon oil.
Sansom is bullish about the menu: “Having tasted the best drinks from across the globe at 50 Best Bars, I do not doubt that these cocktails are the finest from any restaurant group in the UK.”
Prepared in a Champagne flute rather than the traditional gourd, Yerba maté jasmine fizz fuses indigenous, grassy Argentinian tea with Hampshire gin, a jasmine liqueur created by Monica Berg of the famous Tayer + Elementary bar, and sparkling wine reaped from the foothills of the Andes. Given the bitterness of the tea, this refined, uplifting drink took Konstantopoulos the longest to balance.
Finally, the Alfajores depicts Argentina’s famous dulce de leche stuffed Alfajores cakes — a brave move given they are, to their dedicates, irreplaceable. Here, Konstantopoulos combines young Cognac and lightly peated Scotch with a clarified milk punch formed from shortbread, cocoa nibs, triple-cooked coconut, and a fragrant dessert wine from Mendoza. The satisfying result can be savoured in lieu of pudding.
Sansom is bullish about the menu. “Having tasted the best drinks from across the globe at 50 Best Bars, I do not doubt that these cocktails are the finest from any restaurant group in the UK,” he says. Try for yourself.
