Diana Desensi is an incredible chef and a lovely person. I have heard her name so often from other chefs I have spoken to who hold her in high esteem, and it was so refreshing to sit down with her at Saint George and hear how highly she regards the chefs that she has worked for and is now working for. Diana lived and breathed food and fostered a love for cooking from an early age, growing up with a Nonno and a Nonna who she watched and emulated and it is all she has ever wanted to do. I just finished watching Season 3 of The Bear and I know there are mixed reviews, but episode 10 where the chefs all sit around and talk about their experiences, the highs and the lows and you feel that passion, I loved it. And I got exactly the same thrill I got from watching that when I talked to Diana. She was so generous and articulate in what she shared about her own journey and the industry now and I loved every minute of it. I love every conversation I get to have with chefs, but this was a particularly special one.
Conversation with a chef: Thanks for your time. I think we all need to sleep now after all the food. It was delicious.
Diana Desensi: Karen and I have that in common. We just love feeding people.
Charlie and his mate when they saw the ribeye, they couldn't get past it.
It's a no brainer. It pays homage to Karen because she was obviously at the George Hotel at the Wine Room. That's where she started her tenure as a chef. So that was one thing. She had that on the menu there. So when we did the menu here, it was a no brainer to have that steak on.
How long has Saint George been open here?
Six months actually. We took it over on the 8th of January and opened up on the first week of Feb. It only got pushed back a week, which was really good. It was a really fast turnaround. I think Karen and Michael were engaged maybe October and then it was two months later and then we opened the doors.
And you've been here from the start?
I was here from the start, but I was up in Byron. I was looking to come back to Melbourne after my year was up there. I was on the drive home and Karen sent me a text message. One of my owners from Pixie is affiliated with Karen in some way and she always knew I was a massive fan. She said, why don't you work for Karen Martini? I said, maybe, we'll see. She was one of the big three in Melbourne that I've always wanted to work for. Id worked with the other two that I'd always wanted to work for. She texted me and I sent a screenshot to my sister saying, is this a joke? It's a prank. I called her back, and she said, hi, it's Karen. I said, no, really? Who is this? I thought I was getting a prank call from one of my friends. So I literally resigned on the Thursday and then by the Saturday I was on the phone to Karen and then met up with her on the Tuesday when I flew back to Melbourne, we had a chat in Carlton and that was it. I just said, yes to the job after a 45 minute chat to her, I just felt really felt really good about it. We got along really well. She's a wonderful human and then she's a great chef as well. It was just a no brainer for me to come on board.
How does it work when you have someone like Karen Martini, who's the chef and you are the head chef? How much say do you have in the menu and that kind of thing?
Well, with Karen, it was actually a really genuine open conversation about that. I was really transparent about where I was in my career, where I'd come from, what I wanted to achieve and she was so supportive of that. She had had my food before at Montalto when I was working there. I remember she came in one day for lunch and we were fully booked on this Sunday afternoon on a long weekend. And Matt Wilkinson literally made a table for her in the restaurant. And he came in and said, just don't freak out Diana. I'm like, what's going on? He said, Karen Martini just walked in. And I was like, yep, cool.Take a deep breath, this is normal, this is completely fine. She was one of my heroes growing up. She paved the way for chefs and, I guess, female chefs in the industry.She had lunch, came in the kitchen, and just loved it. I remember I made her a tigelle at the time before tigelle were cool in Melbourne. When I rang, she said is this the same Diana that I had that I met at Montalto. That was where the conversation started. And when we had our initial meeting upstairs here, we had, I think it was a seven-hour meeting about the menu. I remember just sitting here, it was dark when we left and we were just talking about food and she was really transparent. She said, look, it is going to be my restaurant. It is going to be my name, my food. But I really want your stamp on it all. And she's been great ever since. We will do the menu and it's a very big collaboration. She'll come with the ideas and then I'll obviously taste and there's not much you can correct with her food. She's really big on flavour and I'm learning a lot about that, how to take everything to that next level and how to extract the most out of really good food and produce. That's pretty much where we are at. We'll collaborate on a lot of ideas. Pasta is very important to me. She lets me run amok with that.
I just love that we are pushed and bound that way. It’s not just, near enough is good enough. That’s why you’re in it. That’s why you work for these people that have just been around the block a few times. And who are not all about the Instagram posts, but are about real food. When you’re in the kitchen with them, you understand why you’re there. It’s great company. ~ Diana Desensi, Saint George
That pasta was so good with the osso bucco. What was the pasta?
Pappardelle.
It was bigger than I had seen it before.
And yeah, so I do it very, I do it very like a casalinga style, so very wide, like almost like a fazzoletti, really thin layers of luxurious pasta that encompasses that sauce.
The sauce was so savoury and delicious, so flavourful.
Oh, awesome. Thank you.
And then the boys were saying that on the ribeye where it was all crusty and caramelized that it almost tasted like blue cheese.
Karen really chases flavour with everything she does. So the crust that we do, there's a reason for it. It's heaps of coriander seed, heaps of fennel, heaps of salt. We literally lather that rib eye in that crust. It gets hit on the Asado. It doesn't even go into the Josper, but it rests for twice as long as well. That's what all that's about. And we use a really good product. Like we use Gary McBean at Prahran Market. All those flavours just pop in your mouth.
And the leek with the goat's cheese? What were the flavours in there?
The Roman bean with ricotta. It's got miso horseradish. Again, just layering the flavours. It's only a dot on the bottom of the plate. That dish has come around. I remember when Karen first did that dish, she had this image in her head of what it was supposed to look like and then a flavour profile of what it was supposed to taste like, and it was a five-day process to get that dish perfect. And everyone loved it from day one, but chef was like, no, it's not perfect yet. It's not there. Then when she did it, I understood she had to come all this way. Learning that from someone as formidable as her, it's just takes it to a different level. And you understand why you work for people like that as well.
Over a five-day process like that, is she or are you writing things down or how do you work through that?
We text each other a lot. I'll get messages at 4.30 in the morning. She'll get texts from me at one o'clock in the morning when I finish work and we'll just have a brainwave. It'll be, chef by the way, X, Y, Z, great idea. And its random, not even hello, it's more like, Hey, I was thinking, we need to do this. And Ill say, I was thinking that too. It's really good. We bounce off each other. But then again, there are times where you can't keep up with someone like that. It's just a matter of just chasing that goal. But she's so far ahead of the game. I don't think even she realizes how far she ahead she is with her palate and what she tastes. I'll make a dish for her, for example, I got back from Italy and I did a pasta dish that I tried to harness from Milano and she ate it and she tasted things in there that I forgot I put in that dish. I'm in a different ballgame now. This is just different league.
Is that what makes the really great chefs: the palate?
Definitely the palate. Understanding food, flavour, but even understanding the fuel you're using. I remember we had lunch here and we had the ribeye that you had today and we were using a different fuel, a different charcoal came in and we just used it thinking, how much is this really going to affect the flavour of the meat? Karen walked into the kitchen and said, chef, you're using the wrong charcoal. And I was like, yeah, we are. It was a supply issue. It was such a small thing. And from that I just thought, this is amazing. I just love that we are pushed and bound that way. It's not just, near enough is good enough. That's why you're in it. That's why you work for these people that have just been around the block a few times. And who are not all about the Instagram posts, but are about real food. When you're in the kitchen with them, you understand why you're there. It's great company.
You've worked with some amazing people.
I have. I've been really lucky.
I spoke to Matt Wilkinson quite a long time when he was at Pope Joan in Brunswick.
Pope was great. Pope Joan was one of the cafes that really started it all in Melbourne as well. He was one of my top three. I remember going to Jack Horner, he had a few restaurants, a few cafes around Brunswick when I was living there. And I remember seeing him in the kitchen one day and I thought oh my God, thats Matt Wilkinson and I was really blown away. Then one of my friends asked me to cater a private event just after Covid and me and my sister were doing private little dinners and just cooking out of my apartment and trying to just keep busy really. I catered this event in Balnarring on the Mornington Peninsula and Matt Wilkinson was there with the Montalto family. That's what it was for. I just did food that I cooked at home, but just elevated. I remember I did a Kingfish crudo with some cucumber and some garam and I did my onion del plin and a pork neck ragu. And Matt walks out into the kitchen and said, hi, I'm Matt. I'm like, yeah, I know who you are, I can't believe this is you. And he was just raving. He asked if he could call me the next day. He called me two days later and I was hired on the Friday, a day later as the head chef at Montalto. It was just really that kismet, kind of serendipitous thing.
But that says a lot about you as well. Obviously you are at the top of the game as well.
I hope so. But at that time, I had come full circle. I had a restaurant when I was 30. I had a goal in mind that when I was 30 I wanted to have a restaurant, my dream car, my dream house. And I achieved all that. I did it all really young. I was at the same business for 13 years. I worked with some very good business people. Entrepreneurial and just really good people. Then I turned 30 and I thought, I've got it all now. And then at 33 I was bored. I learned everything about a business. And the food didn't play second fiddle to that, but it wasn't really the driving force of the businesses. So I just got bought out, I sold out of my contract. I was like, get me out of this somehow. And my mentor John, who's still a great presence in my life said just go and do what you have to do. Get this out of your system because I know you're never going to be happy if you stay. And I went back to being a commis chef after being a head chef and an owner. I went back to being a commis at 33 years old.
How was that?
Scary. I had to interview again after 13 years of being in the same restaurant. John hired me when I was an apprentice and then I became qualified there. I became a sous chef, I became the head chef all in the one place. I did stages while I was there a little bit. I came and went a few times and then when I was ready to leave John said, oh look, we're buying next door and I really want you to be the head chef/owner. So I took that on and then after four years I thought, okay, I'm done now. It's still there. The business is going so strong. But I was kind of at my end of the rope with food knowledge. I knew there was more out there for me. I went to Point Leo, I remember I interviewed with Phil Wood as a no one. He asked me what I did and I said Im no one, nothing. I'm just a larder chef. I'd love to just be a commis larder chef. Took a massive pay cut and moved myself to our beach house and started from the bottom.
He's amazing, Phil.
He was incredible. He runs a really good kitchen. In that restaurant what I took out of that was I learned from everyone else around me. I learned from Dan Lidgard, who's a good friend of mine professionally. He just taught me everything I know about fish these days. We were breaking down 25 kilos of snapper and dory daily from whole, gutting, cutting down. And Dan would be beside me, just hammering me for three to six months about fish. And now everything I do, I do it the way Dan taught me. Phil is a genius when it comes to kitchens and in restaurants. Learning from just watching him was just incredible to be a part of. But that was a team of rock stars.
It’s different now because I’m playing that nurturing head chef role now. I’m not that young person I was 10 years ago. I do want to engage that next generation and I do want to make sure I’m playing my part because I know how important it was to have role models in the kitchen. I still speak to all mine. They play a massive part. I want that for the next generation as well. ~ Diana Desensi, Saint George
I think these days it feels like you're lucky if you can be in a kitchen where you learn how to break down big fish or butchery, all those kind of things. Because it doesn't always happen with wages and fixed hours, there's not enough time in the day to pay for that. A lot of kitchens get stuff in that has been broken down already.
Definitely.
I think that's a shame because you must really get to understand more of the animal and how things work.
Yeah, the anatomy. Definitely. I left Point Leo, and I went to Grossi and that was the same deal. I said to Guy, I don't know how to break down a lamb or a goat. I remember my uncle was a butcher, so we saw it growing up. He would use from nose to tail. And it wasn't because it was cool. It was because that's what you did. I remember someone threw a celery heart in the bin and Guy talked about the respect of the food. It was really important. But it wasn't because it was just sustainable, and it was the in thing to do. It was because that was true to his values. Two days later he got a whole lamb in and he and Roddy are showing me how to break down this whole lamb on the pass of Florentino. I was in between these two people who paved the way in hospitality and chefs and stuff. It was very cool. Like I said, I have been very lucky to work with some really cool people and knowledgeable people.
I was reading somewhere that your love of food and cooking started at a really young age. When you were three with your grandfather?
Yes, with Nonno. It was back in the Thomastown garage, there's photos of me boiling parsley in this little pot that I still have beside my bed. He used to always cook. The only thing I was allowed to do was pick parsley. I would pick it and cut it and then boil it and pretend I was making something with him. Even the smell of Italian flat leaf parsley still brings back that memory. It was my dad's dad and my maternal grandmother. That's where it all started. They used to have a pot of sauce on the stove no matter what time of the morning I was getting up. She'd always make biscuits and always had a big pot of pig fat rendering down. Both really important people. Obviously mum and dad always cooked, but no one was as good as Nonna and Nonno.
So you always knew?
Yeah, there was never a question in my mind. I always knew that I wanted to be a chef. Home economics was my favourite class. My home economics teacher I still speak to, to this day from high school. And that was 22 years ago now.I always knew I wanted to be a chef, but my parents said to me, look, go get a degree or something before you become an apprentice. So I did all that, did a William Angliss front of house course, did events, did tourism, just to have something behind me in case cheffing didnt work out. Because back then cheffing wasn't a thing. It wasn't as cool as it was now. It wasn't a glorified career path. It was hard hours and obviously it still is, but back then more so. I did all that and I thought, you know what, I just need to do this. I pulled myself out and I enrolled in a pre-apprenticeship and went door knocking and handed out resumes. Looked at the Epicure back in the day. That's how I got my first job. I never looked back.
When I started this podcast, it was inspired by a friend of mine in Christchurch in New Zealand. She'd worked in London, and she'd been a head chef and, and worked in Pearl and Gordon Ramsay came in and was mates with the person she worked under and everything, but she said, and I guess that was in the early 2000s that as a woman chef when you walked into the kitchen, you had to earn the respect of the team. Whereas if you were a man when you walked in, you had to do quite a lot to lose it. Do you think things have changed?
I hope so. I'd like to think they've changed. I personally have never felt treated differently because I'm a female. But I guess I have a very strong personality and I carry myself very well. I know what's up against me. So, I just hit it head on. But I guess a lot of my female colleagues don't have that or haven't had that same experience. I'm really lucky I haven't worked in many toxic environments. And the ones that were toxic, I left pretty quickly. But I guess it was a personality thing for me. I just walked in and had my head down, bum up and I didn't really let all that affect me. You always have the random male chef who's going to think that they could put their hands where they shouldn't. You smarten up pretty quickly on that. I think the industry's changed a little bit now. I think it's for the better. I still wish we didn't have the best chef in the world and best female chef in the world. I wish we could just all be in that same pool together and may the best person win. That's where I'd love to see the industry get to. I get that a lot: oh, you're a female head chef. No, I'm not a female head chef. I'm just a head chef. Thats where I want to kind of get to. I'd like to think that I'm not good because I'm a female. I'm good because I can cook against any other person in the kitchen and I can hold my own and there are some really terrible female chefs, but there are really terrible male chefs. And that's where I feel like the industry is getting better. I just don't think it's where we need to be yet.
My biggest thing is training the next generation of people to have that. In the kitchen, I'll always make sure it's an even playing field. I've been really lucky. At the moment in our kitchen, my sous chef is amazing. His wife is in the kitchen as well. So I've got a husband and wife team. I've got a good mix of the 19-year-old angry French girl and up and coming gentlemen as well. I like to think that we're playing our part, but I think we've got to get better quicker and have a bit more of a presence.
It's hard, isn't it? Because I often ask the question, what would your advice be to young people starting out as chefs? And the question lately has been, well where are those young people?
They're not around anymore.
How do you get people to come into the industry?
Well, at the moment I feel like the passion for food isn't there anymore. I think it's really hard to teach. For me it's not even that cliche thing of I'm Italian and I grew up around food. Everyone has that in their own culture: the Asian culture and Middle Eastern culture, European culture, even Australian culture, it all is very much around good food, good people, that's a good time. But I think for me it was ingrained from such a young age that this is why we're doing this, we're understanding the food. But now I've got chefs that come in and they don't really last a test of time because you're teaching them how to do something and they're so anxious about getting onto the plate and taking a photo and posting on Instagram. They're not even understanding why you're doing certain things. You're teaching them how to monte a pasta and they're not understanding that it needs more pasta water or less, or that steak needs five more seconds or all those little steps that just is innate to learning the basic skills. They just want to jump straight to the next part of doing a dish. And that part is so exciting. But there are so many more steps you have to learn, and you have to pay your dues to get there. I just think now everything's at our fingertips. We're so exposed to social media, we're so exposed to all the information that we have. So we always think we know better.
And people are less patient, and maybe less focused because everything happens so fast. People are making money as influencers and it's still hard to understand what that is.
True. You have to play the game otherwise you get left out. I see people on Instagram and all the apps and they're just cooking. And I think, what are you doing? You don't know how to cut an onion and you are showing people. And if I follow that recipe, will it work at home? Probably not. But I can tell you any recipe that a Karen Martini or a Guy Grossi or a Matt Wilkinson put in a cookbook, it's going to work. Be a bit more mindful about what you're reading, what you're buying, what you're listening to, and who you're listening to. That's the biggest advice I tell the chefs. They're so caught up in, oh, that chef's really good. He's got this many followers. I don't care if he's got six followers, if the guy can't cook, the guy can't cook. And that's where we're at. John and I are little bit old school like that. We just roll our eyes, here we go again. He's the next big thing. But I think that's the new generation.
It is probably in every industry.
I think John says it to me at least five times a day, you'll hear a remark and John says, oh this generation and he throws his hands up. We're not that old, but we do feel it. Because there was that jump. We were in a kitchen when the head chef said something and you'd say, yes chef. How many bags full, chef? Now you get questioned. I have to actually justify if I say something, people will say, oh, but are you sure? And I say, I don't say anything unless I'm sure guys, come on. It's different now because I'm playing that nurturing head chef role now. I'm not that young person I was 10 years ago. I do want to engage that next generation and I do want to make sure I'm playing my part because I know how important it was to have role models in the kitchen. I still speak to all mine. They play a massive part. I want that for the next generation as well.
I take a lot of photos. I have notebooks, but it’s all just ingrained in my mind. I was by myself in Italy, I had the time to take it all in. I was talking to providores, to butchers, I was talking to the taxi driver. I remember that was the last conversation I had with the guy that drove me from Milano to the airport. And we were talking for an hour and a half about different ways to make lasagna. I will make lasagna that way from now on because he was just so passionate about it. You pick up from everyone and when you’re in that culture, it’s really hard not to grasp every little thing. It was incredible. It was probably one of the best trips I’ve gone on. ~ Diana Desensi, Saint George
I saw some of your photos of your trip to Italy. Not that I was stalking you. Are those kinds of trips relaxing or is it about the food?
This trip was actually very different. I've been really fortunate to have travelled to Europe more times than I can count. It was my 40th and I just wanted to do it for myself. I didn't really invite anyone to come with me. I said, see you guys, I'm out one way ticket kind of situation, but I ended up booking to come back because I obviously had this really good job here. Initially it was supposed to be a year away. I was going to come back from Byron and go for a year and just holiday for a little bit and do some research. And then I ended up going for three weeks. I just knew what kind of holiday I wanted. I knew I didn't want the summer beach year holiday because I've done that before. And obviously on the back of Byron, that's what we did every day anyway. I worked with a massive list of restaurants and I ate maybe 12 times a day. I was up early. I would come home, siesta, rest and then go back out again and just do that all over again. I was really lucky to meet one of my friends over there in Rome. She's a chef as well. She took me to some really excellent places in Rome as well. We went to a Michelin restaurant with one of her good friends that works there. I learned how to make risotto for the first time properly. I've been making risotto since I was15.
Aren't there risotto conferences where they debate whether it should be more wet or dry?
Yes. Italians are very bizarre people. They have a lot to say about everything, about food. I did that. I went to see my family down south and just hung out with my auntie and just she get that I was going over there to cook and you know, have a play with food. We cooked every day and she showed me recipes and the way they do things has changed. I think Covid really changed things. The cost of living over there has really changed things. People are living a bit more frugally and using what's around like they always have. But I think I just found that a lot more prominent this time.
And again, to remember all those experiences and recipes, does it just become part of your repertoire and DNA or do you take photos? Do you write it down?
I take a lot of photos. I have notebooks, but it's all just ingrained in my mind. I was by myself in Italy, I had the time to take it all in. I was talking to providores, to butchers, I was talking to the taxi driver. I remember that was the last conversation I had with the guy that drove me from Milano to the airport. And we were talking for an hour and a half about different ways to make lasagna. I will make lasagna that way from now on because he was just so passionate about it. You pick up from everyone and when you're in that culture, it's really hard not to grasp every little thing. It was incredible. It was probably one of the best trips I've gone on. I've had some really incredible trips. But that one was up there. It was pretty special.
Amazing. Thank you. It's nice to talk to you. Your name keeps coming up when I talk to other chefs and I am so happy to have had the opportunity to sit down with you.
I've been around the block a few times. I've worked with some really good people. Thank you.
Saint George, 54 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda