Royal family’s former chef Caroline Robb dishes on her time in Kensington Palace kitchen

BRITISH chef Carolyn Robb has dished on what it’s really like to cook for the royal family, and revealed which ingredients are forbidden from the Kensington Palace kitchen.

CAROLYN Robb cooked for the royal family for more than a decade, and now she’s finally spilling the beans on her career in the Kensington Palace kitchen.

The British chef, who was the royal’s personal cook from 1989-2000, has just released a tell-all book in which she dishes on what she served up to the famous family.

In The Royal Touch, Robb reveals how she landed the high pressure job, some of the favoured recipes of Charles, Diana and little William and Harry — and also which ingredients were forbidden.

Speaking to Racked about the book, the 49-year-old Cordon Bleu trained chef divulged plenty of surprising secrets about the clan’s diet.

Robb started at Kensington Palace in 1989.

Former royal chef Carolyn Robb.

On how she came to cook for royalty: “A job came up at Kensington Palace with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, cousins of the Queen’s. I was invited to interview for that. I got the job and they lived right next door to the Prince and Princess of Wales.

“After about 18 months cooking for the Duke and Duchess, Prince Charles and Princess Diana came for dinner. Shortly afterwards, I was offered a job with them. I was in the right place at the right time.”

On Prince Charles’ favourite foods: “Charles loved to have game from his hunting. At [the country house in] Highgrove, they’d grow their own fruit and vegetables, so almost everything was homegrown.

“That was the kind of thing he liked most of all — things from the garden, from the estate. Both he and Princess Diana had a really healthy diet.”

On what she wasn’t allowed to serve up: “The only thing that was forbidden was garlic. And the reason for that was that they obviously did a lot of public engagements and were in close proximity to people and never wanted to have garlic.”

On where the food was sourced from: “Lamb would come from the estate, milk would come from the cows on the estates. The pheasants and game were shot so that was no cost and the wild mushrooms, we’d pick and use them throughout the year.

“It was a healthy diet in terms of everything being homemade. Everything was from scratch: bread, pasta, ice cream, as well as ingredients like mayonnaise.”

Cheeky little Prince Harry liked eating game as a young boy.

On the young princes and their eating habits: “They were amazingly good. Princess Diana was the one who decided what they were going to eat. Like all children, they had their things they liked to eat, but they’d eat roast chicken, Shepard’s pie, homemade fish fingers. And quite early on, they started eating game.”

On how formal their meal times were: “Butlers would serve the meal to the table and the food was on silver platters. But if it was just the Highnesses’ meal for two in the evening, it was much more informal. It would possibly be sitting on trays in the front of the fire.”

But as for Kate Middleton, Robb claims she’s still doing the cooking herself. “You have to remember that she’s not royal. She comes from a normal background and a normal home where she’s always cooked for herself,” she said.

“And what I’ve always heard is that William enjoys spending time with her family because they just eat together at the kitchen table like a normal family. I’m sure that’s what they still do.”

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William smile as they introduce their newborn baby princess, Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, to the world.

Originally published as Royal family’s former chef Caroline Robb dishes on her time in Kensington Palace kitchen