A former royal chef has claimed that Prince Andrew was the most difficult member of the royal family to cook for, as he would make last-minute extravagant demands
A former Royal chef has opened up about his time working in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, disclosing which Royal family member proved more challenging than the rest.
Dan Ottaway, who served as a chef at Buckingham Palace and frequently prepared meals for the late Queen Elizabeth, has shared frank details of his extraordinary stint working for the Firm as he embarked on a fresh position as executive head chef at a luxury hotel in Ireland.
Ottaway revealed that amongst all the royals he catered for, Prince Andrew was “quite difficult” and “much more demanding” than his relatives, whilst also praising a thoughtful gesture by Princess Kate.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Ottaway disclosed that Prince Andrew would inundate the Palace kitchen with elaborate last-minute demands that were challenging to accommodate and placed enormous strain on the kitchen team.
He explained: “We used to say that he was quite difficult, he would have been more demanding than the rest of them for sure. There would have been last-minute requests for lunches, guests, and stuff like that. Other family members would have told us weeks in advance because they understand we needed to prep for them.”, reports the Mirror.
Ottaway continued that Andrew’s unreasonable demands persisted, noting: “But knowing, sort of, that he could get away with anything really, because who’s going to tell him off really, nobody. And he was probably the queen’s favourite child, he was definitely different to the rest of the family in his meal requirements.”
While the former chef confessed that working with Andrew was challenging, he had nothing but praise for the Princess of Wales. He revealed that Kate would always bring the children into the kitchen to express their gratitude to the chefs after a meal, stating: “She didn’t want them to be ungrateful or whatever but it meant a lot to us in the kitchen to see the kids really bubbly.”
Andrew and his ex-wife are no longer the Duke and Duchess of York(Image: Getty)
These claims by the ex-royal chef mirror those made by a former palace employee to biographer Andrew Lownie about Andrew and Fergie’s extravagant banquets, suggesting that their demands for costly and luxurious meals may have played a part in Sarah’s financial difficulties.
The dismissed staff member disclosed to Lownie the “greed and wastefulness that contributed to the duchess’s financial downfall.”
As reported in Lownie’s explosive book Entitled, the former courtier alleged: “Every night she [Sarah Ferguson] demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It’s a feast that would make Henry VIII proud.”
The source went on to say: “But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it’s thrown away.”
The book also claims that “her butler had to get in at 4.30am to put watercress on ice”.
