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MONARCHY MEALS
Royals’ favourite foods REVEALED – William and Harry’s secret jaunts, Charles’ sneaky drink & Queen’s treats for corgis
Watch the video to see Mervyn Wycherley and Ken Wharfe on our Royal Exclusive show
ONE of the major perks about a royal family is having your meals prepared by a team of royal chefs - but what do they really eat behind closed doors?
Former Royal Chef Mervyn Wycherley, who worked at the palace for 33 years, lifted the lid on what was on the menu for the likes of King Charles and Prince William.
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Revealing all on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, Mervyn shared that far from the royals tucking into a sumptuous banquet each night, the royal family prefer to eat fairly simple meals.
Mervyn shared: “The food is quite simplistic. They love simple foods, but always very good quality foods, very organic.
“It's always been the same, all of the family have an interest in food, especially His Royal Highness, the King now, he's very, very interested in his food, and enjoys putting his oar in and with menus and all sorts of things.
“If dinner was done in Highgrove [Charles’ country home] and it was just them on their own, they would just have card tables in the drawing room and have a very simple dinner.
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“It's just first course, main course, dessert.”
Charles’ sneaky vodka drink
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Sometimes the royal family members would have special requests for the royal chefs, including once when Charles wanted a particular tasty tipple.
Former royal protection officer Ken Wharfe, who also appeared on the show, shared: “One of your [Mervyn’s] specials, if I’m correct, with the oranges from Spain, was your orange vodka and gin.
“I think the prince liked your orange vodka.”
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Mervyn said: “He [Charles] used to go out hunting and it's a very warming drink.
“His Royal Highness had found the recipe, somewhere.
Ex Royal chef reveals special Palace corgi menu and the VERY British sweet treat the Queen fed her beloved dogs
“It’s never a problem, it’s what we are there for.
“They used to bring a lot of recipes back from Switzerland.”
Royals get a menu book
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Instead of guessing what the royal family wanted to eat each week, Mervyn explained that the likes of the Queen, Charles and Diana would get a menu book to choose from.
He added: “There is a menu book that goes up every week or every few days to be cleared, and it gives an option of first courses, main courses and desserts.
“There are foods that are known and liked.
“And of course when things come into season and things come off the estates, with venison, and the grass and salmon, and the pheasants come in from Sandringham.”
Corgis got royal chef meals
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We all know that royal pets live in the lap of luxury, but they also got meals prepared by royal chefs too.
Mervyn shared how he used to make scones for the corgis to enjoy while the Queen took tea.
He added: “Her Majesty, the Queen's dogs, they really were well looked after, but ours [Charles and Camilla’s] were a little more simplistic, and because we're always on the go.
“There would be a list of what they like time.
“And some days there's rice and beef and all sorts of things.
“It was Her Majesty the Queen who really looked after their dogs in that way.”
Harry and William's jaunts
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Ken recalled how Prince William and Prince Harry would sometimes leave the palace to go to restaurants with their friends.
However it didn't always go down well.
He shared: “I remember the Prince - now King - was very peculiar about the food that he wanted, and what his family and the staff to eat.
“As William got older, he was very keen to go to burger bars and pizza places, but that didn't really sit that comfortably with his father.
“And I remember coming back from the pizza place and the burger bar in Kensington High Street, which was Bill Wyman's place, The Rolling Stones, The Sticky Fingers."
He added there was this sort of look of disdain with him across Charles' face.
Chef Mervyn added: “They really didn’t often do that sort of thing, all their friends used to do it.
“They stuck at home and had real nursery food, treacle tart and things like that.”
Foie gras was banned
While you may imagine the royals dining on fancy food such as caviar and foie gras, you would be mistaken.
Mervyn shared: “Only if they came in as gifts.
“Foie gras was out of bounds.
“Caviar would be given as a gift and that would be used very liberally if it ever came across the door.”
Royals don’t eat at events
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Mervyn revealed that the royals don’t tend to eat during public events as “people are there to see them.”
As a result, they often leave engagements “starving.”
He explained: “She [Diana] always maintains the fact they go to dinners they could never eat, because people don't want to see them eating.
“They want to actually talk all the time.
“And so they could go to these dinners, chop a few things up and not eat anything.
“They can be absolutely starving. So I always left stuff in the fridge so that they could have something to snack on.”
Ken added that when Diana did eat outside the palace, her favourite restaurant was the Italian San Lorenzo’s in Beauchamp Place.
Charles’ muesli breakfasts
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Mervyn shared how he always made three meals a day for the royal family, but breakfasts were very important to King Charles.
The former royal chef revealed: “High Royal Highness is very, very keen on a good breakfast, and all the compotes of fruit and very that sort of thing, mueslis and and High Royal Highness as well, but then there'll be lunch.
“Tea was just a cup of tea. It was never full blown like Her Majesty the Queen used to have with cakes and things.
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"Then dinner at eight o'clock.”
The royal chef shared how dinner would consist mainly of grouse or salmon and seasonal produce.
What it is like being a chef for the royal family
COOKING for royalty means that everything has to be perfect as former royal chef Darren McGrady well knows.
Darren, who worked for the royals for 15 years and cooked at Buckingham Palace, Sandringham and Balmoral, has revealed that when it came to banqueting events he had to prepare no less than 150 plates of food for the late Queen.
Speaking to , Chef McGrady said: “There were no food tasters, no.
“Some Royals had their food prepared separately away from guests at big banquet events.
“However, with the Queen, we would prepare 150 plates and the Queen’s page would come in and pick one at random.
“That way, if you were to tamper with the food you would have to tamper with all of them.
“From our perspective, it also meant we had to get the same standard across every plate, not knowing which one the Queen would be eating.”
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