Stripagram? No, Pippa has Mr Snail Porridge
HEN parties can be notoriously raucous affairs. But when Pippa Middleton threw a girls’ weekend to celebrate her forthcoming wedding, X-rated entertainment was kept firmly off the menu. Instead she asked avant-garde chef Heston Blumenthal to prepare a four-course meal for her guests. It is not known if the Michelinstarred chef served up some of his most famous experimental dishes, such as snail porridge. But certainly the food would have been welcome after the party of 24 spent last Saturday drinking champagne and being pampered at a top London day spa. Pippa’s older sister, the Duchess of Cambridge, was conspicuously absent, however. The siblings reportedly celebrated in a more private way with a ski holiday in Meribel, France, last month.
If Kate’s absence from the party was to avoid compromising situations such as her husband’s ‘dad dancing’ at a stag party in Verbier last month, she needn’t have worried. One source said: ‘It was very civilised. Everyone went to a spa, then to Pippa’s place for dinner. Heston’s food was the main attraction. There was not an L-plate in sight.’
Another source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It was enjoyable and elegant and a little bit drunken, but somewhat tame. It was about food, not heavy drinking.’
After enjoying Heston’s meal at Pippa’s £17million townhouse in Chelsea, West London, some of the guests were said to have gone on to Mayfair nightclub Annabel’s, while others ended up at nearby private members’ club Loulou’s.
The hot topic of conversation at the hen do was whether Pippa should change her mind about not inviting Prince Harry’s girlfriend Meghan Markle to her wedding to banking tycoon James Matthews, 41, in Berkshire on May 20.
‘Pippa seemed like she’d had a change of heart because Meghan’s attendance has been discussed so much publicly,’ said one source.
Earlier this month, the MoS revealed Pippa, who studied at Edinburgh University, was planning a honeymoon on the Glen Affric Estate in Inverness-shire, owned by her fiancé’s family.