Talk:Steak Diane

Steak Diane is not a cut of meat

Steak Diane is a preparation of beef tenderloin, including its particular sauce, originally done tableside.

Steak Diane

Poor Diane. paul klenk ^talk 16:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments on the Article and the Dish

I love this dish, and I like the name, as well. It is hunter's steak, because it is served medium rare, and it is good, hearty fare that is not too complicated. Also, it is similar to a Swabian dish made with pork tenderloin. I see no reason for the article's snarky remark that the dish was "considered dated in 1980." Well, excuse me! I like to serve traditional favorites from my parents' and grandparents' generations, especially on tradition-steeped occasions like Christmas. It is a charming dish, a treat for all the senses, and it never fails to delight and surprise my guests.Wkailey (talk) 14:36, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

"but was considered dated by 1980..."

I think that statement needs to be removed. Yes, it is sourced - but it's a single-source, and only one person. It's not a fact, it's an opinion. I don't see any difference between that and, for (hypothetical) example, quoting Elon Musk saying "Gas powered engines are dated." I mean, right wrong or otherwise, it IS just one person's opinion. And it does indeed seem a bit snarky and not appropriate for a WP article. Lots of people, and more than a few "chefs" do not think it is dated, at all. I just don't care enough about this topic to delete it. Normally, I would. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 12:10, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I have added a number of other references which demonstrate quite clearly that steak Diane was popular in the 1950's and 1960's and has since gone out of fashion, like the Continental restaurants where it was served. Of course, fashion is fickle and arbitrary in many ways, but I think it's important to document the social history of foods. Interestingly, Google nGrams shows a peak of references to it in the 1980's, but a lot of that seems to be setting a retro scene, as in this article: "restaurants once put phone jacks in walls next to tables. The image comes to mind of a tuxedoed captain calling out one`s name, phone in hand, and bringing vital calls between the shrimp cocktail and steak diane."; also see Jane and Michael Stern's American Gourmet; "Chef Mark Simon's menu, refreshed four times a year, blends New American with retro (steak Diane)." ("steak+diane"&dq="steak+diane"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip-7WLhMTaAhWImOAKHXDQBw8Q6AEITTAI 1995).

Of course, that doesn't mean that they aren't still listed in cookbooks and menus.

In general, we need to do a better job of putting dishes in their social context. For example, our tuna casserole article says nothing about how out-of-fashion it is, a poster child of retro foods, and by the same token a comfort food for some. There is definitely a class and region issue here, so we have to be careful not to take an editorial position, but rather report what various people say. Presumably, Reader's Digest and Saveur have different opinions. --Macrakis (talk) 14:38, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree that there is a need to be careful about not letting opinion color information about a dish, but it's fair to say it's dated in the sense you are highly unlikely to find it in restaurants, and certainly not in places that have changing or trendy menus. It doesn't mean a food is good or bad. It's important to add context, especially for something as iconic as this dish. SnarkyValkyrie (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

History

The paragraph starting "In mid-20th-century New York, there was a fad for tableside-flambéed dishes.[11] By the 1940s..." Is confusing. It is out of chronological order by talking about the mid century (1950ish) and then not only going back to the 1940s, but by saying -By- the 40s, implying something lead up to that time. The sentences are attempting to suggest that a popularity of table-side flambee brought about (or coincided with) a popularity in steak Diane, which I think is important, but it needs to be reworded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SnarkyValkyrie (talk • contribs) 14:54, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Good point. That was left over from the article having started out as New York-centric. I've reorganized the history chronologically. By the way, I would say the 1940s are as much mid-century as the 1950s -- after all, the middle ten years of the century are 1945-1955. The organizational challenge is that there are two threads of evidence leading back to Quaglino's in London. One is from Australia, the other from New York. But the Australia story is much thinner than the New York story, and the dish was probably introduced to New York and Australia pretty much simultaneously (in 1939?). The order follows the documentation. But if we were to follow the reconstructed time line of events (rather than their documentation), we'd start with London, not Australia or New York. But the London evidence is less direct. Still, the section could be reorganized that way. Perhaps you could try your hand at reorganizing it better? --Macrakis (talk) 15:49, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Here is another possible way to rewrite that paragraph:

Steak Diane was probably invented at Quaglino's restaurant in London in the 1930s. The head chef of Quaglino's at that time, Bartolomeo Calderoni, claimed in 1988 to have invented it, and two maîtres d'hôtel closely associated with it, Beniamino Schiavon in New York and Tony Clerici of London and Sydney (Australia), both had connections to Quaglino's. Quaglino's was serving steak cooked tableside in a chafing-dish in 1937, though the name of that dish is not documented.

Steak Diane does not appear in the classics of French cuisine. The name 'Diana', the Roman goddess of the hunt, has been used for various game-related foods, but the "venison steak Diane" attested in Pittsburgh in 1914, although it is sautéed and flambéed, is sauced and garnished with fruits, unlike later steak Diane recipes, so there does not appear to be a connection.

The earliest attestation of Steak Diane by that name is in Australia in 1940, when it was mentioned in an article about the Sydney restaurant Romano's as their signature dish. Romano's maître d'hôtel Tony Clerici said he invented it at his Mayfair (London) restaurant Tony's Grill in 1938 and named it in honor of Lady Diana Cooper. Clerici may have learned the dish from his associate Charles Gallo-Selva, who had previously worked at the restaurant Quaglino's in London,

During the 1940s, steak Diane was a common item on the menus of restaurants popular with New York café society, perhaps as part of the fad for tableside-flambéed dishes. It was served by the restaurants at the Drake and Sherry-Netherland hotels and The Colony. as well as the 21 Club and Le Pavillon. In New York, it is often attributed to Beniamino Schiavon, 'Nino of the Drake', the maître d'hôtel of the Drake Hotel. Schiavon was said to have created the dish with Luigi Quaglino, the co-founder of Quaglino's, at the Plage Restaurant in Ostend, Belgium, and named it after a "beauty of the nineteen-twenties" or perhaps "a reigning lady of the European demimonde in the nineteen twenties". At the Drake, it was called "Steak Nino".

Other stories mention the Café de Paris in 1930's London and the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro.

What do you think? --Macrakis (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

References

To flambé or not to flambé

Not sure if this merits mention in the article, but here are extracts from an exchange in the correspondence columns of The Times

From William Shepherd, House of Commons, 23 July 1958, p. 9:

How long will it be before good-class restaurants in London cease the offensive practice of cooking meat actually in the dining room? … What can be more nauseating in a crowded restaurant on a hot day than to be assailed by the fumes of frying fat?

From Livio Borra, Maître Chef des Cuisines, Quaglino's, 26 July 1958, p. 7:

Mr. Shepherd writes under some misapprehension... Certain dishes of the haute cuisine must be cooked in front of the customer if he is to be served with them in perfect condition. An example is Steak Diane. This thin, delicate strip of meat could never survive if it were to be cooked in the kitchen and then served in the restaurant. Crêpes Suzettes is another example in which tableside cooking is essential to provide this delicacy at its point of perfection.

I mention the exchange here to illustrate that cooking Steak Diane at the table was the post-war practice at Quag's, where the dish seems to have originated twenty years or so earlier. But perhaps it would overload the article. – Tim riley talk 09:36, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

No, on the contrary. Being prepared tableside is a central feature of this dish from its origins, so it's good we have an explicit source for it, though it's pretty clearly implied by things like Calderoni "personally" cooking it for the Duke of Windsor. If Calderoni had been in the kitchen, no one would say that he "personally" cooked it. --Macrakis (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Origin

Macrakis, you were kind enough to invite comments on the article and in particular the history of the dish. You may regret asking me, as I suspect I am about to make muddy waters even muddier.

Imprimis, I think we should record that Auguste Escoffier published a recipe for Sauce à la Diane in his 1907 Le Guide culinaire (pp. 24–25). This is it:

Sauce à la Diane. — Préparer 6 décilitres de sauce Poivrade bien dépouillée, corsée et relevée. L’additionner au moment de 4 décilitres de crème fouettée (2 décilitres de crème crue, celle-ci doublant au fouettage), et 2 cuillerées de petits croissants de truffe et de blanc d'oeuf dur.

But Escoffier added the note "Spéciale pour côtelettes, noisettes et filets de venaison.". In his 2012 book Who Put the Beef in Wellington? – 50 Culinary Classics, Who Invented Them, When and Why, James Winter comments, "So he probably evolved the recipe himself from a familiar and widely used peppercorn sauce".

My 1989 11th edition of Hering's Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery (p. 42) defines Diane as "pepper sauce finished off with cream, garnished with diced hard-boiled egg whites and truffles". Not much like the familiar sauce for steak Diane.

The Daily Express reported on 7 November 1936 (p. 4):

There is a good new grill-room in Jermyn St, where you should ask them to do you a steak Diane—fillet steak beaten flat, cooked before your eyes on a chafing-dish in hot butter with a dash of Worcester sauce.

Two things arise from this. First, there is still a celebrated steak restaurant in Jermyn Street, though I haven't been to it since the 1980s, and don't know if it is the same establishment. Secondly, this minimalist recipe precisely matches what a beloved friend (b. 1911) who dined out frequently in the West End before and after the Second World War told me in the 80s – a steak Diane should be done in butter and Worcester sauce and nothing else.

The dish was known in Switzerland (the Palace Hotel, St Moritz) before the war. This is from The Weekly Dispatch 7 August 1938 (p. 2): "What heaven to be in a place where the waiter doesn't raise his eyebrows at a midnight order for champagne and steak Diane to be served in one's bedroom!"

You already mention Quag's in the article, but according to the Express in 1946 (2 June, p. 2) the brothers Ernest and Giovanni Quaglino invented steak Diane and named it after Winston Churchill's daughter. (Doubtful, methinks, as she was Diana, not Diane). In his 2011 book What Caesar Did for my Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods, Albert Jack writes (p. 165):

After the Second World War, when thousands of American GIs returned home after being stationed in France, steak Diane (as the dish was called by then, although consisting of beef rather than venison and served with a different sauce) began to find its way on to the menus of many big city restaurants.

I find this unconvincing, as I have never seen Biftek Diane on a French menu or in a French cookery book. But Jack is more persuasive, I think, when he goes on to say:

In New York during the 1950s and 1960s, a number of top hotels created versions of steak Diane as their signature dish, each claiming to have invented it. None of them had, of course, but they all had their own unique variations. Further afield, at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, presenting the dish was made into a theatrical spectacle.

Sorry to add more hares to be chased! Tim riley talk 10:19, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for piling it on, but I have unearthed the name of the restaurant in Jermyn Street. It was "Luigi's Grill", at number 55, run by Luigi Azario, a former manager at Claridge's. His chef was Maccagno, who, according to The Bystander (7 October 1936, p. 40), cooked for many years for the Italian Royal Family. Basta, Riley! Tim riley talk 12:00, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

@Tim riley: These is all great information! Why would I regret asking? Collaboration like this is what WP is all about.

The Escoffier recipe is already mentioned in the article.Steak Diane#Game and distinguished from the later "steak Diane". We could elaborate further in the paragraph beginning "The name Diana" to clarify for example that Escoffier's recipe called for a sauce poivrade made in the haute cuisine way from mirepoix or based on sauce espagnole, and for cream. As you say, this is very different from adding a few ingredients to deglaze a saute pan. I have added a few words which may improve things.

It seems likely that the creator of steak Diane was inspired by Escoffier, but is it the same dish?

I had tried to antedate the dish, but failed. Where did you find the Daily Express mention? Do they have their own archive search? We will have to add that.

As for your friend, I think the article is clear that "Early recipes had few ingredients".

We already document the Palace Hotel in 1938 under Steak Diane#St. Moritz.

It seems unlikely that the Quaglino brothers invented the dish. The article documents claims of invention by Tony Clerici; Beniamino Schiavon with Luigi Quaglino; and Bartolomeo Calderoni (at Quaglino's). The article only says that it was probably invented in London in the 1930s.

I agree that the returning GIs story is implausible, since as you say steak Diane was not found in France. Google nGrams claims that it is mentioned in French books starting in 1961, but (a) that is much too late for returning GIs and (b) anyway, I can't find the source documents. For that matter, since when do "fancy" dishes get transmitted by GIs (most of whom also don't cook)?

Maybe you should start the Luigi's Grill article, if there is enough material to make it notable. I expanded the Quaglino's article while I was researching steak Diane. That's a common pattern for me: I created, expanded, and reorganized the Joel's Bohemia article (using much existing material) while creating Celebrity wall (are there UK restaurants with early or famous celebrity walls?), and then created Carlo de Fornaro, their caricaturist, and then Prince del Drago, one of the (long-forgotten) celebrities whom he caricatured.

Do you have any RS for the connection between steak Diane and Luigi's Grill (which was apparently directly opposite Quaglino's)?

It sounds as though the various restaurants founded by Italians in the Jermyn Street area were connected by staff leaving one and joining another, or in the case of Quaglino, leaving one (Sovrani's Restaurant) and starting another. So maybe it was a case of Murder on the Orient Express -- they all invented it.

This all reminds me of Sullivan Powell of Burlington Arcade, around the corner. I briefly took up pipe smoking and I bought their blends here in Cambridge, Mass., so of course had to visit their shop in London. Was my favorite No. 00 or Special Mixture? I can't remember, but it was the lightest (most Oriental tobacco) and most fragrant.

I don't have much time right now to incorporate this into the article. Please go ahead if you'd like. --Macrakis (talk) 04:47, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

What a pleasing reply! Thank you, sir! I'll ponder and report back. Tim riley talk 21:32, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks again for the additional info. I've added some to the article,but I don't have access to the full text of the Daily Express articles -- do you? Can you check the context of the 1952 comment? --Macrakis (talk) 18:42, 15 February 2026 (UTC)