{"id":969518,"date":"2026-07-30T17:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T17:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/969518\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T17:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T17:53:17","slug":"hollywoods-wildest-meat-party-is-back-and-everyones-invited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/969518\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood\u2019s Wildest Meat Party Is Back \u2014\u00a0and Everyone\u2019s Invited"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMore than a decade ago, The Hollywood Reporter ventured inside one of Los Angeles\u2019 strangest and most decadent industry traditions<\/a>: Beefsteak<\/a>, a sprawling, carnivorous feast where Hollywood comedy writers and their friends gathered to eat enormous quantities of meat with their bare hands.<\/p>\n

\n\tEleven Beefsteaks and one pandemic later, the party is still going. And according to longtime host and\u00a0The Simpsons<\/a> showrunner Matt Selman, this year\u2019s edition \u2014 held, like the others, at Vibiana (a cathedral turned event space) on Aug. 29, under the watchful eye of chef Neal Fraser \u2014\u00a0may be the most over-the-top yet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI hate to say the phrase \u2018best Beefsteak yet,\u2019\u201d Selman says. \u201cBut the fact that we have Dario Cecchini, the ultimate king, the most famous butcher in all of Tuscany, slicing and preparing and providing the beef as only he can is kind of a huge deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCecchini is the mustachioed Italian butcher and restaurateur whose theatrical approach to meat has made him an international culinary celebrity. He will descend on Los Angeles for the 11th edition of Beefsteak, bringing a bit of Tuscany to a tradition with roots considerably closer to Tammany Hall than the Tuscan hills.<\/p>\n

\n\tHistorically, beefsteaks were communal meat feasts that flourished in late-19th- and early-20th-century New York, where politicians and working men gathered to consume alarming quantities of beef, traditionally without utensils. The Los Angeles incarnation revived that spirit for an entirely different constituency: comedy writers, actors, producers and assorted Hollywood hangers-on looking to spend one night behaving as though cholesterol had never been discovered.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the years, it became something of an unofficial annual reunion for the comedy business.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is a comedy prom,\u201d Selman says.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSelman at the 2015 Beefsteak at Vibiana in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tValerie Macon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tBut he pushes back on the idea that Beefsteak remains some impenetrable Hollywood clubhouse. This year, for the first time, tickets are available to the public<\/a> \u2014 meaning civilians can enter the meat-scented inner sanctum themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not an elite or exclusive event, which is kind of cool,\u201d Selman says. \u201cMaybe for a couple years in the beginning, when the agents and managers discovered it, it became a little bit of a Hollywood thing. But now it is really a bacchanal for anyone who wants to go to the best party of the year, hands down, for a good cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, those hoping to observe comedy writers in their natural habitat should not be disappointed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere could definitely be rub potential,\u201d Selman says when asked whether ticket buyers might find themselves rubbing shoulders with familiar faces.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeefsteak has also developed its own constituency of obsessives. Selman says some attendees have made nearly every edition, turning the event into a kind of annual pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a certain point, it\u2019s like people come together and see people they only see once a year at this magical night,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s almost like they\u2019re in a club \u2014 a once-a-year supper club.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pilgrimage is becoming literal. Attendees now travel from around the country and, increasingly, overseas. Selman himself is flying in relatives and says a group of his high school friends is coming to Los Angeles for the occasion.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPeople should be inviting their friend groups from other cities because life is short,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is where Selman\u2019s pitch for Beefsteak takes an unexpectedly existential turn.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is something you would need to experience,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel like I can say that without exaggeration. I know life is short. You can\u2019t argue that. But the idea that this is the type of party you really should experience before you die, I can say that without hesitation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSelman has never slipped Beefsteak into an episode of\u00a0The Simpsons, although writers have pitched the idea.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s certainly something Mr. Burns would like,\u201d he says, imagining that Springfield\u2019s resident billionaire would probably prefer \u201cthe old-timey version, not the modern, cool, elevated, fancy, over-the-top version.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor now, the real-life version may be sufficiently cartoonish.<\/p>\n

\n\tMuch of that comes down to Cecchini, whose restaurants in the tiny Tuscan town of Panzano have turned butchery into theater. Even Selman, who professes not to know exactly what Cecchini has planned, sounds slightly awed by the possibilities.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis guy, Dario, is so bananas,\u201d he says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t do a lot of L.A. stuff. So even if you\u2019ve been to other Beefsteaks, this guy\u2019s going to be on display.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a decade ago, The Hollywood Reporter ventured inside one of Los Angeles\u2019 strangest and most decadent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":969519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[389285,1582,276,20947,2961,224,5337,29142],"class_list":["post-969518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-beefsteak","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-dining","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-the-simpsons"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117010211296667550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}