Argentina slams on the steaks

Argentina's gifts are bountiful, from Borges, who changed the world with the magic flowing from his fingertips, to Maradona, who...well, pretty much the same. Celebrating the Europe-of-South-America's culinary contributions: Casa Malevo.

Soft-open tonight in Marylebone by an expat twosome (one a former El Bulli chef), Casa's slinging meat-laden "Cocina Argentina" in a rustic redoubt with rough bare-brick walls, aged wooden floors & furniture, and cracked-paint shelving filled with vintage seltzer bottles, meaning somewhere some very old clowns are giving prop-free comedy a shot. For your gluttonous pleasure, the menu starts out with apps like "Mollejas al verdeo" (grilled sweetbreads w/ spring onions, bacon & lemon), marinated ox tongue w/ parsley, garlic & sherry vinaigrette, and Empanadas Salteñas -- sort of like a Cornish pastry, in that it's stuffed with meat, and from another country. Beyond Patagonian lamb chops and a lemon & rosemary quarter chicken, the grill's proudest offering's Pampas-sourced beef in the form of rib eye, sirloin & fillet, slather-able in salsa-style Criolla, peppercorn, horseradish, Provencal, or fois butter sauces; heftiness options are listed up to 300g, but if you want a larger cut of beef, the menu directs you to ask your waiter, who hopefully won't reply "if I could help you with that I'd be wearing much tighter trousers".

Sides include roast bone marrow, creamed spinach, grilled flat 'shrooms, double fried eggs, and triple-cooked, hand-cut chips -- judging from his bountiful post-career waistline, something a certain football god god has had no trouble wrapping his fingers around.