Buenos Aires Café

Is there a better spot in London for an Argentinian steak joint than this, right on the edge of Blackheath? Gazing through the big windows, that could be the pampas out there, where those famously flavoursome cattle are raised. The interior is promising too: small, intimate, a little higgledy-piggledy. With all the framed images on the walls, from photos of celebrities (the Queen, Rod Stewart) to a pencil sketch of Lionel Messi, it’s pleasingly unpretentious too, like a restaurant in La Boca. This down-to-earth vibe was reinforced by the presence of pizza and pasta on the menu, alongside the classics, and the chalked-up soup of the day: ‘mixed vegetables’ is all it said. No shame in that. There was shame, however, in a starter of sweetbreads that were caked in charcoal. Our polite complaint was met with what seemed like suppressed annoyance. A steak also went unfinished – we had wanted medium (not maximum) rare. A pizza genovese would have been fine if it wasn’t so soggy underneath, and for £14.70 too. The best part was the bread, a robust French-style loaf. The heath was looking very bleak as we left – the pampas it ain’t.