The Royals’ weird eating habits revealed

The former chef for the royal family at Buckingham Palace has revealed the family's eating habits, which have been described as “bizarre”.

In an interview with MarieClaire.com, chef Darren McGrady, who worked at the palace between 1982 and 1993, revealed some of the eating habits of the Queen, along with Prince Philip, the Queen Mother, Princes William and Harry, and Princess Diana.

Some of the more intriguing revelations were that the Queen Mother was always late for dinner, that once the Queen is done eating everyone else must stop, and that the family would come to dinner in their formal wear every day.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“They would come to dinner in dressy ball gowns, and sit at the table — like a Downton Abbey dinner. All the fine china was brought out. At the end of the meal, a bagpipe player would walk around the table,” McGrady told Marie Claire.

As for the food itself, Prince Philip had no time for organic food, the Queen refused to eat anything with garlic in it and Diana stuck to a strict diet of no fats or red meat.

But it wasn't all dislikes - he also disclosed that Prince Harry and William both loved McDonald's, the Queen had Kellogg’s Corn Flakes every morning, and the family reportedly had regular barbecues at Balmoral.

Another revelation was that the Queen likes to eat fruit out of tupperware when she's not eating off a diamond-encrusted marble plate reportedly worth £500,000.

Her Majesty also always has plenty of culinary options. “At Buckingham Palace, we'd do a menu book that we'd send up to the Queen and she could choose the dishes she wanted,” McGrady added. “The book would come back to the kitchen and we'd prepare them.”