Celebrity Chef Recalls Mortifying Moment She Served Queen Elizabeth a Bad Cup of Tea
A celebrity chef confessed to an embarrassing blunder regarding Queen Elizabeth II while promoting her new book.
Even Britain’s most noted chefs are apparently not immune to royal nerves. Dame Prue Leith, the culinary icon and former Great British Baking Show judge, recently recalled the mortifying moment she served Queen Elizabeth what she describes as a terrible cup of tea, which is an incident she admits still haunts her decades later. The celebrity chef shared the embarrassing story while promoting her new memoir, Being Old and Learning to Love It!.
As per PEOPLE, Leith joked that royals somehow bring bad luck into professional situations. She said, “I actually think there's something about the royal family; they jinx things,” before explaining, “Because I think what happens is people get quite overexcited at the thought of them, and then everything seems to go wrong. You talk to any caterer, and they'll tell you drama stories about the royals.” One of the most memorable incidents for Leith took place in 1986 when the late Queen visited the Queen Elizabeth II Center in Westminster, London, where the former’s catering company had secured the food contract.
According to Leith, the Queen had spent hours touring a conference building before finally reaching the end of a reception line where the chef stood waiting. Panic immediately set in, however, when Leith realized she had no idea how the monarch preferred her tea. Her frantic attempt to fix the drink on the spot only made matters worse. In her memoir, Leith confesses that instead of presenting the Queen with the comforting cup she deserved, the chef ended up presenting the royal with “a weak lemony tea served by a half-wit.” Later, Leith admitted the moment genuinely upset her because of how much she admired the late Queen.
Leith then elaborated, “Personally, the thing that upset me most was not giving the Queen a decent cup of tea, because I much admired the Queen.” She continued, “Poor bloody woman. She's been walking around this extremely boring building for two hours… By the time she got to me, she must have been absolutely panting for a cup of tea, and I failed completely.” Although she was full of regret after the tea disaster, Leith shared yet another incident, this time with Princess Margaret, which was even more embarrassing and full of chaos.
In her memoir, Leith shared about a disastrous evening during the late 60s, when Princess Margaret came to dine at her restaurant. As per the chef, everything went into a downward spiral when a “snobbish head waiter” refused to serve the princess the venison casserole she requested. He, then, insisted that royalty should be given roast pheasant, which the restaurant didn’t even have! The confusion soon escalated over to the kitchen, and it only worsened when the same waiter accidentally caught fire while refilling a flambé lamp. Leith immediately attempted to extinguish the flames, albeit with flour-covered hands, which led to her white handprints being left all over the waiter's black uniform. Despite the endless chaos, though, Princess Margaret later returned to the restaurant with friends for what Leith described as “a perfectly harmless meal.”
