Princess Diana’s Former Chef Reveals Exactly What He’d Serve Her, Prince William, and Prince Harry for Lunch

This…isn’t what I had for lunch today.

The Gist

• Princess Diana’s former chef Darren McGrady revealed on his YouTube channel exactly what he’d make the Princess of Wales for lunch—a meal she often shared with her sons Prince William and Prince Harry when they were boys.
• McGrady worked for the Royal Household beginning in the 1980s, and worked specifically for the Princess of Wales from 1993 until her death in 1997.
• The lunch menu would alter based on who was there, like if the trio had a friend come to visit Kensington Palace for the meal.

Princess Diana’s former chef Darren McGrady has revealed on his YouTube channel (and via Hello!) exactly what he would make for the Princess of Wales for lunch, noting that it was often a meal she’d share with her sons Prince William and Prince Harry when they were boys.

“When she was entertaining, especially if she had the boys home, William and Harry, I had to change the menu to make it nursery-friendly so that the boys would like it—comfort food that they would like but a dish or two that she would like, too,” he said.

One time, McGrady recalled, he had Diana and Harry for lunch, where he made sole florentine for the Princess of Wales and spaghetti bolognese for Harry. Sometimes, he noted, Diana would change the menu completely when a friend might join them for lunch at Kensington Palace; then, he said, they might opt for his tomato mousse followed by lobster thermidor with a pear flan for dessert.

Sometimes, McGrady said, Diana would tell him to take lunch off so that she could take her sons to McDonald’s. McGrady—who worked as a chef for the royal household beginning in the 1980s and who worked specifically for Diana from 1993 until her death on August 31, 1997—said that Diana, William, and Harry’s trips to the Golden Arches were about more than just food, explaining (via People), “One lunchtime, I was getting lunch ready and the princess came in and said, ‘Cancel lunch today. I’m taking them out.’”

“I asked, ‘Where are you going?’ and she said, ‘McDonald’s,’” he remembered. “I said, ‘I can do burgers better than McDonald’s,’ and she said, ‘I know that, Darren, but they want the toys and the Happy Meal.’ They would get fast food sometimes, just like normal families with children.”

He also recalled that the menu he cooked for the princess changed from when she was solo following her separation from Prince Charles in 1992 and their divorce in 1996 and when the kids came to Kensington Palace. “It changed from Princess Diana’s healthy eating—stuffed peppers, aubergine, vegetarian dishes—to nursery food,” McGrady said. “Wills and Harry loved cottage pie, pizza, chicken nuggets, French fries, potato wedges, macaroni cheese.”

William, in particular, had a sweet tooth: “William would walk into the kitchen and say, ‘Darren, can I have some chocolate ice cream, please?’” McGrady said (via Marie Claire). “I’d say, ‘Help yourself.’ He’d grab Häagen-Dazs chocolate chip—that was his favorite—open it, and sit in the windowsill eating it.”

“It was so much more relaxed over at Kensington,” McGrady continued.

The chef’s YouTube channel is a wealth of information if you should, you know, want to eat like the most famous woman in the world for a day. As for breakfast? McGrady said she ate the same meal “every day”—what he called “Princess Diana’s Overnight Oats” (and he shared the recipe, to boot!).

On June 27, McGrady spoke about the dish, which Diana discovered in Switzerland: “When I became Princess Diana’s chef, she got her life back on track,” he said. “She was a patron of 119 different charities, she was working out at the gym three days a week, and just looking the best she ever did.”

“She said, ‘Darren, you take care of all the fats, and I’ll take care of the carbs at the gym,’” he added. “Now, this meant she was now eating healthy, and her go-to breakfast was something called overnight oats.”

“She thought they were really, really good, and all the ingredients were super healthy,” he shared. “She stole the recipe, came back, and said, ‘Darren, I want these for breakfast every day.’”

McGrady was a fan, too—so much so that he said through laughter, “It was so good, I actually used to double the recipe so that the chef got it for breakfast, too.”