CurryDM1ST up, Wills
Prince takes phone booking at Indian restaurant in Brum
PRINCE William spiced up a couple’s day by taking their booking when they phoned an Indian restaurant.
And his move curried favour with the diner’s owner, who thought he was so professional she exclaimed: “We could employ him front of house.”
William, 40, stepped up yesterday while he and wife Kate, 41, were being served a range of dishes at the Indian Streatery restaurant in Bennetts Hill, Birmingham.
After taking the booking and giving the customer directions, William said: “He knows where you are now, I probably sent him somewhere else, so I apologise.”
But restaurant owner Meena Sharma could not hide his delight at William’s initiative.
She said: “All of us were really surprised he actually picked up the phone. There was a genuine person on the other end wanting to make a booking.”
And at 2.15pm, customers Vinay Aggarwal and wife Ankita Gulati arrived ahead of their train home to London. Mr Aggarwal, a software engineer, said he had “no idea” it was William who took his call, saying: “It’s pretty amazing and a surprise. Obviously, it’s not something that happens often.
“I didn’t recognise his voice at all, I genuinely thought someone was taking the booking for me.”
In the first of two stops in Birmingham, Kate said food is “so nostalgic” and she “loves spice”.
But William said he preferred milder food, adding: “I’m a masala man.”
During the visit, part of a wider tour of the country ahead of King Charles’s Coronation, the Prince and Princess of Wales went on to speak to young people in the creative industries as they hosted an event in the Rectory pub, which overlooks the city’s historic Jewellery Quarter.
BAFTA president William met film students and told them he enjoyed watching movies whenever he could “fight the children off the TV”.
And he revealed: “My favourite is Top Gun: Maverick. It’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen.”
He also told a young woman who teaches at a dance centre in the city: “I still wish I’d learned to breakdance. It’s one of my greatest regrets, not learning to breakdance when I was young.”