Gaucho Charlotte Street: A first look as revamped site becomes UK's first 'carbon-neutral' steak restaurant

The first images have been released for the overhauled Gaucho on Charlotte St, which opens on Monday December 9.

Marking the group's 25th anniversary, the change is something of a dramatic one. Gone are the cowhide seats and wall hangings and the department store floor, replaced with brushed metal and dark woods, deep blues and greys and a touch of mustard.

The new look is, the group say, something of a statement of intent, an indicator of what Gaucho stands for in 2019 and beyond. It is, perhaps, an answer to those who wondered what would happen to the upmarket chain, which went into administration last summer before being bought out.

“People will be so, so shocked” says Mike Reid, culinary director of Rare Restaurants, which oversees both Gaucho and M Restaurants, “Before, you felt like you’d walked into a porno from the 70s; the chandeliers, the cowhide. It was horrible, it was horrible.

“But everyone’s going to be so taken aback. It’s incredible, just incredible.”

The cosmetic changes are not the most startling. Gaucho – once the blokiest, set-in-its-ways restaurant going – is to go carbon-neutral, a first for a UK steak restaurant.

“Charlotte Street will be carbon neutral by the end of 2020, we need one year to make us completely carbon neutral,” says Reid, “We’re working with the University of Cambridge and the University of Buenos Aires to study our cattle and their methane output, so we can design a new style of feed which will reduce it.

“We’ve done a lot of work on it over the last six months and we know it’s a hell of a lot more sustainable than other types of beef because of the amount of grass they have to graze on in Patagonia or La Pampas, but we’re working with universities to make that quantifiable.

“We’re working with a carbon neutral consultancy company too, so basically, we’ll start planting trees in Argentina, and we have plans for the vineyards too.”

With Charlotte Street leading the way, the rest of the group is set to follow step and be carbon neutral by 2022. In the meantime, the new restaurant will start serving certain wines by the tap, in an effort to use fewer bottles, while still boasting the largest list of Argetinian wine in the world outside of the countryside itself. Other firsts include a “beef bar” – as one might find an oyster bar elsewhere – the promise of the UK’s first imported Argentine beef on the bone and – a first for Gaucho, at least – plant-based dining and vegan dishes on the menu, too.

Reid, then, is overseeing a very different restaurant to the one he once cooked in. He first worked with Gaucho from 2007, joining as a sous chef and swiftly ascending to become a head chef. He left after five years, in 2012, and moved to Australia early the next year. Martin Williams persuaded him to fly back here in 2014 to help open his newly-founded M Restaurants, and the two have been in cahoots – it’s the only word for it – ever since.

“For me, I left Gaucho at the right time – but I also feel like I left some unfinished business. So I was very excited to go back.”

It’s enough to keep his hands full; soon Reid will begin filming the revived Ready, Steady, Cook! – “I’m really looking forward to it… I’ve just got to be a bit better behaved, the BBC’s pretty strict on that!” – but he seems buoyed by the challenge.

“It was very, very surreal [to go back], especially to go to the O2, where I was head chef for a couple of years. My first realisation was just that the food had not only stood still, but kind of gone backwards a little bit – it was a little bit dated. It needed to be freshened up a little bit, the kitchens retrained, re-energised and reinvigorated.” And from the looks of it, that’s exactly what he’s done.