15 Behind-the-Scenes Tales from a Former Buckingham Palace Chef

For 15 years, Darren McGrady served as one of 20 chefs working for the British royal family. In 1982, McGrady became a live-in royal chef at Buckingham Palace, working his way from peeling carrots for Queen Elizabeth II’s horse, to cooking for the royal family and such guests as American Presidents. In 1993, McGrady moved to Kensington Palace to cook for Princess Diana as well as her children, Princes William and Harry, where he stayed until Diana’s tragic death in 1997.

The former royal chef now runs his own catering company, The Royal Chef, based out of Dallas, Texas, and occasionally spills some tea as to what really happened inside the Buckingham Palace kitchen during one of his cooking tutorials on his YouTube channel, media interviews, and his book, “Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen Cookbook.” If the walls of the royal kitchens could speak, what would they say?

Queen Elizabeth II hated garlic and forbade its use whenever she was at the table, according to former Buckingham Palace chef Darren McGrady. He explained that the queen abided by rules of the Victorian era and opined that eating garlic was anti-social. However, if the queen was dining out, members of the royal family who enjoyed garlic, like the queen’s husband Prince Philip, would be served steak slathered in garlic.

Her Majesty also hated spicy food and banned the royal chefs from serving anything spicy while she was at the royal table, as well as dishes that had too many onions. Wine was typically off the menu too, as the queen preferred a gin and Dubonnet cocktail instead. “When you move to Buckingham Palace, everything is how the queen likes it,” McGrady told Business Insider. “It doesn’t matter if you think it needs more salt, or cream, you cook it how the queen likes it.”

Everyone has a favorite food. For Queen Elizabeth II, her ideal meal consisted of venison medallions with a whisky mushroom cream sauce, rice, and salad made from indigenous produce from the queen’s own gardens, according to Chef Darren McGrady. Other favorite dishes the queen enjoyed included Gaelic steak, fillet steak with mushroom whisky sauce, Gleneagles pâté, which is smoked salmon, trout and mackerel, and anything with venison. Her Majesty also indulged in delicate tea cookies and scones with jam and clotted cream, McGrady shared.

McGrady left his post at Buckingham Palace in 1993 to become a private chef for Princess Diana and her children, Princes William and Harry, until Diana’s tragic death in 1997. While the princess herself ate the healthiest of the royals, preferring fish and stuffed bell peppers, she also wanted to make sure her children had a chance to just be boys, McGrady told Women’s Wear Daily, so they were served “as much pizza and loaded potato skins as they can get.”

For Queen Elizabeth II, food was not something she found enjoyable, she “only ate to live,” her former chef Darren McGrady explained to Newsweek. Although the queen could have anything she wanted, as the Buckingham Palace kitchen was stocked with what McGrady called the most amazing produce, the best quality food, and the best ingredients to work with, the queen preferred a simple bowl of Kellogg’s Special K cereal for breakfast, while lunch was typically grilled fish with salad.

For the royal chefs, the queen’s lack of interest in food meant Her Majesty was not adventurous and preferred the same traditional British and French cuisine, usually made with lots of creams, butters, and fats, for her four small-portioned daily meals. If the queen was to approve a new dish, she would ask to review the recipe before signing off on it, McGrady explained. Perhaps this is how Her Majesty was able to live for more than 90 years without trying pizza?

Queen Elizabeth II may not have been a foodie, but she preferred dishes that incorporated local organic produce from her gardens as well as local game caught on or nearby her estate such as partridge, pheasant, venison, and Salmon, says Chef Darren McGrady. The royal family could afford any ingredient they wanted but it meant something special to the queen to have something grown or caught right on her estate be used to feed her family and guests, McGrady explained.

Even for large state banquets and diplomatic receptions, the queen loved putting her own produce and game on the menu, and would often check-in with the chefs to ensure there was enough food from her estate to feed everyone. It was then up to the chefs to enhance the flavors of the berries, vegetables, and game, McGrady said. One of the queen’s favorite dishes from her gardens? Strawberries. McGrady shared in a YouTube video how fresh strawberries from the queen’s garden were used to make jam that the queen would use on her scones. The fresh strawberry jam was also used to make Jam Penny sandwiches for the queen’s afternoon tea. 

Queen Elizabeth II may have ruled during the 21st century but her lifestyle and food preferences more closely resembled that of the Victorian-era, according to Chef Darren McGrady. The former royal chef explained that every two to three days, the queen was given a red leather-bound book of menus written in French. The queen would read through the menus and choose what she wanted for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner by putting a tick next to those items that piqued her interest and drawing a line through the dishes she didn’t want served. She would also note how many people would be dining with her and what they were to be served.

Even the living quarters for staff followed Victoria-era rules, McGrady shared, explaining there were separate male and female kitchen wings, and footmen and housemaids were separated on different floors too. Guests could visit those who lived at the palace but no one was allowed to stay past 10 p.m. or overnight and there was no mingling on opposite gender floors. “We were part of the Victorian era,” McGrady told Business Insider, before comparing the living situation at Buckingham Palace to the show “Downton Abbey.”

Not many foods excited the queen, except for chocolate, dark chocolate in particular. Anytime the chefs at Buckingham Palace put chocolate on the menu, it was almost always selected by the queen, says Chef Darren McGrady. Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite dessert was a chocolate perfection pie made with meringue, cinnamon, and chocolate cream. And every year on the queen’s birthday she would enjoy chocolate cake too. But as McGrady shared in a YouTube video, the queen was incredibly disciplined and would only eat one small slice of cake before sending it back to the kitchen. The cake would be sent up again the next day and this same cycle would repeat until the queen decided she was finished and the cake would be shared with staff.

Other sweet treats the queen enjoyed almost daily included a chocolate biscuit cake. This royal treat was an icebox-style cake made with simple tea biscuits, cookies in the United States, that are suspended in an egg-enriched ganache that is chilled before coated in a thin layer of chocolate. If there were leftover pieces of cake and the queen was going to be traveling to Windsor castle from Buckingham Palace, she sometimes had the chefs transport the leftovers by train.

In 1993, Darren McGrady moved out of Buckingham Palace and began cooking exclusively for Princess Diana and her children, Princes William and Harry, at Kensington Palace. McGrady fondly shared memories of the princess, describing her home and world as warm and personable compared to the formality of Buckingham Palace. Another difference McGrady noted was that Diana’s table sat a maximum of 10 guests because it was important to the princess to be able to converse with those she dined with.

While working for Diana, McGrady cooked meals five days a week and would leave extra food in the refrigerator for Diana to enjoy during the weekend, along with detailed instructions on how to reheat the food in the microwave. Because the princess was worried about her figure and was recovering from bulimia, she asked McGrady to serve her mostly a vegetarian diet and create fat-free versions of British comfort foods. McGrady noted Diana would occasionally eat steamed fish or poached chicken but she never ate red meat. As Diana told McGrady: “I want you to take care of all of the fat. I’ll take care of the carbs at the gym,” the chef told the Huffington Post. 

Queen Elizabeth II may have eaten to live, but her husband, Prince Philip, was an adventurous foodie who not only lived to eat, but he also enjoyed cooking, says Chef Darren McGrady. The Duke of Edinburgh enjoyed spicy foods like curry and was open to experimenting with ingredients and flavors such as jugged hare — rabbit cooked in its own blood, says McGrady. However the king’s favorite meal was Salmon coulibiac, a Russian dish consisting of puff pastry wrapped around salmon, mushrooms, onions, hard boiled eggs, rice, and normally dill, but McGrady used tarragon instead, he shared in a video with Delish.

Unlike the queen who was content with a bowl of cereal for breakfast, Philip traveled with an electric glass-lidded frying pan everywhere he went, according to diaries compiled from a former royal footman, Charles Oliver, in the book “Dinner at Buckingham Palace.” Philip required a grill so he could cook his usual bacon, eggs, and sausages for breakfast, sometimes kidneys and omelets. McGrady recalled Philip would barbecue as often as five times a week when the family was at Balmoral, in a conversation with Delish. On one occasion, McGrady recalled Philip came into the kitchen and ended up grilling lamb, not only for the royal family, but staff too.

Very little is known about the 750-year-old kitchen at Buckingham Palace. But one detail that Chef Darren McGrady shared with Newsweek is that some of the copper kitchen cookware still in use today is stamped with the initials “V.R.” because they were used to cook food for Queen Victoria during the 1800s. When the queen moved to her various royal residences, these antique copper pots and pans, bowls, whisks — essentially the entire kitchen — would travel with her too, McGrady explained.

The royal chef was required to travel with the royal family to not only various royal residence but all over the world. Royal chefs would often take an advance trip to where the royal family was headed in order to understand what kind of local ingredients would be available to serve the royal family. During one trip to Kathmandu, McGrady recalled finding ripe mangoes to serve during his advance trip and decided to put mango ice cream on the queen’s menu. However when he returned a few weeks later with the royal family there was an issue finding ripe mangoes that forced the royal chefs to go on a frantic search around Nepal for mangoes.

Every Sunday after the royal family attended church, they would sit down and enjoy a proper Sunday roast beef dinner or lunch, Chef Darren McGrady shared in a video on YouTube. It’s not just the royals who enjoy this tradition of roast dinners, it’s a quintessential British tradition to have Sunday roast dinner to bring family together, McGrady opined on his Royal Chef blog.

While a Sunday dinner is often made with roast beef, you can also enjoy roasted pork, chicken, or lamb, along with a medley of vegetables such as cabbage, peas, carrots, and Brussels sprouts, McGrady explained. Roast beef however is the most popular choice for Sunday dinner, served with parsnips, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, more commonly known as popovers in the United States, and topped with gravy and horseradish sauce.

For the royals, McGrady often used boneless beef ribeye roast from the fat end of the cow as he explained it’s the cut with the best flavor. Given the queen preferred her meat well-done, she was always served the first slice of the beef from the roast, much to the royal chefs’ chagrin, McGrady shared.

Queen Elizabeth II preferred eating the same foods over and over, according to Chef Darren McGrady. While part of the queen’s resistance to new recipes was likely inspired by her pickier palate, Her Majesty was also really sentimental when it came to recipes that had been in the family for centuries, McGrady explained.

One dish in particular the queen ate at least weekly her entire life was “Jam Penny” sandwiches during her afternoon high tea, McGrady shared in a video on his YouTube channel, noting that the queen enjoyed these delicate tea sandwiches as a child and with her own children too. Another tried and true recipe the queen kept coming back to was the chocolate ganache sponge cake created for Queen Victoria. For the 11 years McGrady worked in the Buckingham Palace kitchens, this is the only cake that was served to members of the royal family on their birthday, he said.

The queen enjoyed afternoon tea — always Earl Grey and always with scones — no matter where she was in the world. Of course, it was maddening sometimes to be on a long-haul flight to Australia, land in what was actually early morning U.K. time and want to go straight to sleep, but because it was tea time in Australia, Chef Darren McGrady said his first job would be to make scones in a video on his YouTube channel.

Queen Elizabeth II ate plain scones and fruit-infused scones, but always with jam and clotted cream, the former royal chef shared. Although there is some debate on whether to apply jam or clotted cream on the scone first, the queen put jam on her scone before adding clotted cream, McGrady shared in a YouTube video. Of course scones were far from the only food enjoyed during tea time. McGrady explained the royal family, specifically the queen, was served tea sandwiches with the crust cut off as well. Her favorites were salmon with cream cheese, Jam Penny sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, and cheese and tomato sandwiches. Strawberries and cream was also a tea-time favorite, McGrady shared on YouTube.

Before chef Darren McGrady started working in the kitchens at Buckingham Palace, he imagined the royals dining on only the most luxurious foods like caviar, Foie gras, and champagne. However in reality the queen was very frugal, in part because she grew up during World War II, McGrady explained. This meant that opulent ingredients and extravagant dishes were reserved for state banquets. 

Even when it came to serve the royal family their everyday meals, the queen was frugal about what food was used, often preferring as many fruits, vegetables, and game, be sourced from her estate in Balmoral in particular, McGrady says. If the queen was dining solo, she did not want any potatoes, rice, or pasta for dinner, preferring instead grilled sole with vegetables and salad. Even though the Queen loved adding smoked salmon and a grating of truffle on her scrambled eggs, she would never order fresh truffles herself. Instead she waited until she received truffles as gifts around Christmas time to enjoy this dish.

Prince William and Prince Harry were often in the kitchen playing hide and seek, recalled Chef Darren McGrady. The princes would use it as an opportunity to find out what was for lunch or dinner and if the menu didn’t particularly tickle their taste buds they would try to convince the royal chef to change it, McGrady says.

Although Princess Diana wanted the young princes to eat like little boys from time to time, allowing the boys to feast on pizza and fried foods, when she was away, the nannies would select the princes’ food, McGrady explained. “I remember one day I had roast chicken, cabbage, broccoli and potatoes on the menu for dinner. That’s what their nanny, Jessie Webb, wanted the boys to have. When I came into the kitchen that day, there was a note on my desk saying ‘Darren, please give the boys pizza for dinner tonight.'” Although the note was signed “Jessie,” it was clearly written by 7-year-old Prince Harry, McGrady told Newsweek.

One rule royal chefs must abide by when working at Buckingham Palace? Keep calm in the kitchen at all times because you never know if the royal family is going to enter, according to Chef Darren McGrady. If the queen came into the kitchen, all kitchen staff were to stop whatever you were working on, move pans to the side of the stove, take three steps back, and bow, McGrady explained. The queen was not a regular in the kitchen, but McGrady fondly recalled Her Majesty walking in, or speaking through a kitchen window from the outside, to thank the chefs for their delicious food.

Working for Princess Diana however, was much more informal. As McGrady recalled, cooking was not one of the princess’ strengths, but that didn’t stop her from bursting into the kitchen and offering to make coffee for both herself and McGrady. And if the princess was dining alone, she preferred to eat in the kitchen and chat with McGrady, something no other royal had done before.