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According to a Former Royal Chef, Queen Elizabeth Doesn’t Care About Calories

queen elizabeth cake

Queen Elizabeth’s former chef, Darren McGrady, is opening up about his experience cooking for the royal family, and uh, we’ll have what they’re having.   

In a recent interview with Delish, the former royal chef discussed the queen’s culinary preferences—like her favorite dish Gaelic steak, which he prepared with venison that was usually hunted near the monarch’s country homes, Sandringham and Balmoral.

Perhaps the juiciest detail that McGrady revealed is that Queen Elizabeth didn’t have many food restrictions, particularly when it came to calories.

“One of the things I soon learned working for the queen, was that all of the dishes were rich in cream and butter and fat,” he said. “Calories didn’t really matter. We could use as much cream and butter in the dishes as we wanted to, and it just made them taste amazing. It really was traditional French cuisine.”

While McGrady admitted the queen is a “chocoholic,” he commended her willpower for limiting desserts. “The queen is such a disciplinarian,” he explained. “It amazed me that we would send a great big chocolate cake up for her to have a meal or afternoon tea and she would just take the tiniest slice.”

The chef even noticed that she never returned for second helpings. “If she wanted more, she would wait until the next day when that cake came up again,” McGrady added.

Who knew that a tiny slice of chocolate cake is the secret to the 93-year-old’s longevity.

Listen to ‘Royally Obsessed,’ the Podcast for People Who Love the Royal Family



greta

Senior Editor

Greta Heggeness is a California-based editor at PureWow and has been writing about entertainment since 2015. She covers everything from awards shows to exclusive celebrity...