Sometimes with red meat, simple is best. Sure, you can get ribs dry rubbed or dipped in any variety of sauce at the growing number of barbecue restaurants around town, za’atar scented kabobs at midtown food carts, and spice-infused steak tartare at dozens of eateries from Orchard to BLT Steak. And by now, a zesty and smoky, falling-off-the-bone tender short rib is as much of a cliché on a New York menu as the beet and goat cheese salad or the molten chocolate cake. But just as aggressive spicing seems to be taking over Gotham, there are a few local restaurants still holding fast to the idea that simple preparations often yield superior results. It’s a dangerous idea: there is no hiding the quality of the meat, and more to the point, plain and simple grilling lays bare the skill of the man (or woman) behind the grill like almost no other technique. Simple is only for the brave.

This was the lesson we learned last week at Gaucho Steak Co., a closet-sized steakhouse opened on the western edge of Hell’s Kitchen earlier this summer by Food Network celebrity chef Alex Garcia. We visited with good friends Zach from Midtown Lunch and his wife Mrs. Midtown, both of whom are avowed red meat lovers–a perfect tasting team. Among the four of us, we ordered a fillete (beef tenderloin), and two bifes (New York Strip, pictured top). Both were $18, a relative bargain for steak in New York, especially considering that one of twelve side dishes is included in the price. Meats were all of very good quality–the restaurant uses all Uruguayan free-range beef–and seared on a hot parilla grill to achieve a charred exterior and a tender interior. Great in theory, but we were disappointed to discover that two of our steaks, both ordered medium-rare, arrived decidedly medium. Both kinds of steak were served over a bed of marinated, grilled red onions, made sweet and tart from a bath in a simple marinade–a fine way to cut the heaviness of the meat. The other steak accompaniment we were served, a ramekin of surprisingly bland and mild chimichurri sauce, was mostly useless. Side dishes were also hit-or-miss: my swiss chard with cheese was a bitter approximation of steakhouse-staple creamed spinach, while Zach’s Gaucho fries were wonderfully crunchy, salty and hot.

Gaucho does serve more than just steak, however. Nosher, the evening’s designated non-beef eater (guinea pig), ordered the potato-encrusted salmon ($16) with swiss chard (this time prepared simply with slivers of garlic) and a mango mustard sauce. Dry and overcomplicated, the salmon not only tasted like it had been shaped from modeling clay, its multi-layered preparation also made it seem completely out of place on the menu. In the end, a very hungry Nosher found he couldn’t finish more than a third of it. The choice of salmon is also a bit suspect, especially when Argentina is home to some of the Atlantic’s finest seafood–most particularly, the dorado, a fish that grills like a dream, or at least like less of a nightmare than the starch-plastered salmon.

Our appetizers were, like the salmon, generally disappointing. These included a selection of unexceptional and oily mushroom empanadas ($3) and two deep-fried dishes: the chicken and manchego croquetas ($7), and the deep fried chicharrones (calamari, $8). The croquetas could have used twice the seasoning they were given, and the squid, while fried expertly, was made just a bit too sweet by a too-generous coating of Argentinean honey.

Despite its competent preparations of red meat, we left Gaucho Steak Co. feeling conflicted and more than a little bemused by the restaurant’s early efforts to create an identity for itself. The leather tablecloths, metal fittings and burned wood paneling seek to conjure up scenes from the warm grassy steppes of Argentina, but on closer inspection, it is not hard to spot that the steaks are all from Uruguay, the micro-mini wine list features a few iffy Spanish wines alongside Malbecs, and even Alex Garcia, no gaucho himself, is originally from Cuba. But put all of that aside; he may never have ridden a horse through the Tierra del Fuego, but Garcia knows how to grill beef. So if you go, ignore the appetizers and the mismatched multi-culti distractions and just keep it simple: stick to the steak.

Gaucho Steak Co., 752 Tenth Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Streets, 212-957-1727.