How a ‘real fuss’ was created for Sussexes’ date
WHILE the Duke and Duchess of Sussex insist they’re just like any other couple trying to live a private family life, their treatment in restaurants even before they quit royal duties seems to tell a different tale.
Jamie Shears, who was head chef at 45 Jermyn Street, owned by the Queen’s grocer Fortnum & Mason (far right), has spoken out about the reception given to the now California-based pair.
‘We got celebrities in all the time,’ Shears tells me. ‘But, for Harry and Meghan, there was a real fuss. Half the restaurant was roped off for the night so they could dine in peace.’
Shears, who is about to start as head chef at Mayfair gastropub The Audley, reveals: ‘They came in together just before they went public as a couple. But it was still unusual: 45 Jermyn is a discreet place to eat without doing that.’
There is no indication that the treatment was at the couple’s insistence.
Shears tells me Meghan ordered the monkfish curry. When asked whether preparing a dish for the former actress was an honour, he laughs, ‘not especially’.
It wouldn’t have been the only time that Meghan was granted special treatment while visiting a London landmark. She and friends were pictured surrounded by empty seats as they watched tennis star Serena Williams play on Court 1 at Wimbledon in 2019.
A fellow spectator, Sally Jones, revealed that she and others seated nearby had been asked to put away their cameras.
‘I was in fact taking a picture of Miss Williams,’ an indignant Ms Jones later explained. ‘The man who had accosted me was obviously her royal protection officer, and he was deeply embarrassed as he explained she was there in a “private capacity”.
‘I looked at him in astonishment. Private!? You what!? I even mentioned the vast contrast between this control freakery, so alien to typical royal behaviour, and the Duchess of Cambridge’s calm, restrained demeanour two days earlier when there were plenty of amateur snappers, thrilled to encounter their idol with not a shoulder-tap in sight.’