Night Delia left HM’s chef with a LOT on his plate
AS THE Queen’s personal chef, Mark Flanagan is used to challenges, but on Monday he faced a particularly tough gig.
Her Majesty had invited Delia Smith, whose cookery books have sold millions of copies, to dinner at Windsor Castle.
And, what’s more, Delia, was not the only celebrated cook summoned to the ‘dine and sleep’ stay.
Also on the guest list was Sally Clarke, whose Clarke’s Restaurant in Kensington is one of London’s most fashionable dining rooms.
A courtier tells me: ‘Mark is not daunted easily but he could be forgiven a few anxious moments before dinner was served.’
Both Delia and Sally were far too discreet to comment on their royal invitation yesterday, so we may never know if Flanagan’s dishes met with their approval.
He could, however, have been given a few tips on what to serve at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding reception in Windsor next month. Flanagan was responsible for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace in 2011.
With less than a year to go until Britain leaves the European Union, the Queen’s dinner party may have turned into something of a Brexit celebration.
That’s because the leading Brexiteer and inventor Sir James Dyson was also on the guest list with his wife, Deirdre. Another diner was Mona Juul, the ambassador for Norway, which thrives outside the EU.
The Queen has reportedly previously used dinner parties at Windsor to ask guests why we should remain in the EU.
Before the referendum in 2016, her biographer Robert Lacey revealed that she had asked fellow diners: ‘Give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe.’
The Queen is, officially at least, politically neutral, but she intervened in the Scottish referendum debate in 2014 by suggesting in a conversation with a member of the public, which she knew was likely to be reported by the Press, that she hoped Scots would ‘ think very carefully’ before casting their vote.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment.