Steak Diane is a dish of

pan-fried Pan frying or pan-frying is a form of frying food characterized by the use of minimal cooking oil or fat (compared to shallow frying or deep frying), typically using just enough to lubricate the pan. In the case of a greasy food such as baco ...

beefsteak A beefsteak, often called just steak, is a flat cut of beef with parallel faces, usually cut perpendicular to the muscle fibers. In common restaurant service a single serving has a raw mass ranging from . Beef steaks are usually grilling, gr ...

with a

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

made from the seasoned pan juices. It was originally cooked tableside and sometimes

flambé :''Flambé is also a type of ceramic glaze.'' Flambé (, , ; also spelled flambe) is a cooking procedure in which alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames. The word means "flamed" in French. Flambéing is often associated with t ...

ed. It was probably invented in London in the 1930s. From the 1940s to the 1960s it was a standard dish in "Continental cuisine",Mark R. Vogel, "Diana: The Legacy of the Huntress", ''FoodReference'

"One thing is for sure. Steak Diane was the rage in the 50s and early 60s, especially in New York."Pierre Franey, "60-Minute Gourmet; Steak Diane", ''New York Times'', January 31, 197

/ref> and is now considered retro style, retro.Leah Koenig, "Lost Foods of New York City: Steak Diane", ''Politico'', March 14, 201

"Lost Foods of New York City is a column that celebrates the food and drink that once fed the city, but have disappeared.... America’s collective obsession with all things mid-century New York City is back in full martini-slinging force. What better time, then, to celebrate steak Diane—a dish so quintessentially retro-glamorous, it might as well be called steak Don Draper."

History

"Steak Diane" does not appear in the classics of

French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...

; it was probably invented in London in the 1930s,"A Gourmet's Guide", ''The Sketch'', 20 April 1955, pp. 54–55 although one source suggests

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...

in Belgium. The name Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, has been used for various game-related foods, but the "venison steak Diane" attested in 1914, although it is sautéed and flambéed, is sauced and garnished with fruits, unlike later steak Diane recipes. Steak Diane was known before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. A London newspaper of 1938 reported "a midnight order for champagne and steak Diane" at the Palace Hotel,

St Moritz St. Moritz (also german: Sankt Moritz, rm, , it, San Maurizio, french: Saint-Moritz) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in ...

. Bartolomeo Calderoni, the head chef of

Quaglino's Quaglino's is a restaurant in central London which was founded in 1929, closed in 1977, and revived in 1993. From the 1930s through the 1950s, it was popular among the British aristocracy, including the royal family, many of whom were regulars ...

restaurant in Mayfair in the 1930s, was reported in 1955 to have popularised "the then rarely encountered Steak Diane, which he used personally to cook for the

Duke of Windsor Duke of Windsor was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 8 March 1937 for the former monarch Edward VIII, following his abdication on 11 December 1936. The dukedom takes its name from the town where Windsor Castle, ...

, then the Prince of Wales ntil 1936 with whom the dish was a great favourite". Indeed, Calderoni claimed in 1988 to have invented it. According to a 1957 article,

Lord Louis Mountbatten Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of Germa ...

was a regular diner at the Café de Paris in London in the 1930s and "nearly always had the same dinner – a dozen and a half oysters and steak Diane". The dish was known in Australia by 1940, when it was mentioned in an article about the Sydney restaurant Romano's as its signature dish. Romano's

maître d'hôtel The ''maître d'hôtel'' (; ), head waiter, host, waiter captain, or ''maître d ( , ) manages the public part, or "front of the house", of a formal restaurant. The responsibilities of a ''maître d'hôtel'' generally include supervising the wa ...

, Tony Clerici, said he invented it in London at his Mayfair restaurant Tony's Grill in 1938 and named it in honour of

Lady Diana Cooper Diana, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris. As a young woman, she moved in a celebrat ...

."1939 Steak Diane introduced to Australia", Jan O'Connell, ''A Timeline of Australian Food: from mutton to MasterChef'', 2017, , as quoted on th
Australian food history timeline
web site Clerici may have learned the dish from Charles Gallo-Selva, who had previously worked at Quaglino's in London. The dish had also appeared in the US by 1940, although it was not widely known. Later in the 1940s, steak Diane featured frequently on the menus of restaurants popular with New York

café society Café society was the description of the "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris and London beginning in the late 19th century. Maury Henry Biddle Paul is credited with ...

, perhaps as part of the fad for tableside-flambéed dishes. It was served by the restaurants at the

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals * A male duck People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name * Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * ...

and Sherry-Netherland hotels and at The Colony,Arthur Schwartz, "21's Steak Diane

https://web.archive.org/web/20120727110322/https://www.thefoodmaven.com/nycfood/steak_diane.html archived] quoting from Arthur Schwartz, ''New York City Food: An Opinionated History and More Than 100 Legendary Recipes'', 2008 also quoted in the

21 Club The 21 Club, often simply 21, was a traditional American cuisine restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street in New York City. Prior to its closure in 2020, the club had been active for 90 years, and it had ...

, 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 in 1968 to have created the dish with Luigi Quaglino at the Plage Restaurant in

, Belgium, and named it after a "beauty of the nineteen-twenties""Beniamino Schiavon is Dead; Known as Mr. Nino of the Drake", ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', November 19, 1968
p. 47
/ref> or perhaps "a reigning lady of the European demimonde in the nineteen twenties".Grace Glueck, "Hotel gives fête for its Maître D'", ''

'', October 26, 1967
p. 50
/ref> At the Drake, it was called "Steak Nino". In 2017 another establishment was suggested as the originator of steak Diane: the

Copacabana Palace Hotel Belmond Ltd. (formerly Orient-Express Hotels Ltd) is a hospitality and leisure company that operates luxury hotels, train services and river cruises worldwide. In 2015, the company had 35 deluxe hotels, 7 tourist trains, 3 river cruises and rest ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

Preparation

Steak Diane is similar to

steak au poivre Steak au poivre (, Quebec French pronunciation: ) or pepper steak is a French dish that consists of a steak, traditionally a filet mignon, coated with coarsely cracked peppercorns. The peppercorns form a crust on the steak when cooked and pr ...

. Early recipes had few ingredients: steak, butter, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, salt and chopped parsley, and possibly garlic. The steak is cut or pounded thin so that it will cook rapidly, sautéed in the seasoned butter and Worcestershire sauce, and served garnished with the parsley. It was not flambéed. Later American versions were more elaborate: the three New York City recipes from 1953 add some or all of brandy,

sherry Sherry ( es, jerez ) is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versi ...

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae that produces edible leaves and flowers. Their close relatives include the common onions, garlic, shallot, leek, scallion, and ...

, dry mustard and lemon juice. Only one recipe explicitly calls for flambéing: the sauce is flambéed with brandy, dry sherry, or Madeira, and poured over the steak. Some more recent recipes add cream or mushrooms or both to the sauce. Others are more similar to the older recipes."Steak Diane"
''Cooked''. Retrieved 4 May 2022

References

{{Beef Beef dishes English cuisine Cuisine of New York City Australian cuisine 20th-century food Table-cooked dishes Flambéed foods

History

Preparation

See also

References