The Club des Chefs des Chefs, an association of chefs of presidents, queens and prime ministers were in town recently and AsiatatlerDining.com meets Mark Flanagan, the royal chef for the Queen of England at the Mandarin Grill to talk about Prince Philip, royal swans and Her Majesty’s food preferences. Stay tuned for next week, when we talk to the chef of President Obama.

AsiatatlerDining: I know that you never divulge the Queen’s favourite meal in interviews, but could you describe for us the Queen’s taste in food? Is she an adventurous or traditional eater?

Mark Flanagan: Her Majesty is quite adventurous, really; but she has very simple tastes. We are very fortunate with the estates such as Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor. There is a lot of wonderful produce that we try to utilise. For example, when we go to Balmoral in the summer, we’re always there for the first grouse of the season and the stag-hunting so we use a lot of the venison. We also have a wonderful garden there which is unique because the climate in Scotland is not known for being good but we’re just in this little micro-climate so we get all sorts of fruits and vegetables. We do things as simply as possible, we don’t use a lot of spices and just try to accentuate the natural flavours.

ATDining: Before you were Her Majesty’s executive chef, you used to work in restaurants. What would you say were the biggest differences between the two jobs?

MF: In a restaurant, you have to impress everybody as a paying guest and they order whatever they want. You have a very intense service period and in our type of catering, we don’t have that at all. You know exactly how many people are coming, who they are, what time they arrive: otherwise, they don’t come! Essentially, the palace is the Queen’s home so it’s just the same as coming into anybody’s home. If you had guests for dinner, it’s unlikely that the guest will say, ‘You’re serving salmon tonight? I’d rather not have salmon. Can I have pork?”

ATDining: At state banquets, do you showcase British cooking, or cook the cuisine of the guests?

MF: We try to showcase and utilize our own produce. We would never try to emulate something from China because the Chinese premier was coming. The formation of our cuisine is very much traditional French and the menus are all written in French. But the world is very global and so are cooking styles, so it’s difficult to say what makes something French or English. Coq au vin is chicken in red wine, perhaps we don’t produce any good red wine in England, but essentially it’s similar.

ATDining: Are there any special recipes you have inherited from previous royal chefs?

MF: We have some family favourites that are continued. My predecessor was there for 42 years and I have a number of chefs on my team that have been working at the palace in excess of 20 years, so yes, we do hand the recipes down.

ATDining: What would you say is the most old-fashioned thing you serve Her Majesty?

MF: Some of the old-fashioned things are very popular now. But for something very traditional, we serve a posset, a lemon posset. It has been served for many many years.

ATDining: Swans used to be served only at royal banquets: are they still served?

MF: I’ve never cooked a swan, it’s one of those urban myths. Technically, they say that the Queen owns all the swans but there are different breeds of swans and I believe technically the Queen is only the owner of a certain breed. It wouldn’t be legal in the U.K to catch, cook and serve a swan so it’s a delicacy I’ve gone without.

ATDining: Does Her Majesty give you special requests of what she’d like to eat or does she leave it mostly up to you?

MF: Her Majesty always chooses the menus, every menu. I prepare suggestions for the menus and Her Majesty makes the final decision. However, Her Majesty will send me down suggestions or recipes and say, “This looks interesting, can we try this?”

ATDining: Where does she find the recipes?

MF: His Royal Highness Prince Philip is an avid reader and an accomplished cook. They meet many people out on their travels and receive cookery books so they might have a look in there and say, “This looks nice”. Some people ask if I get upset having to cook other people’s recipes but I think it’s great because that means they’re interested and my job is to try to make them happy. Any assistance I can get is always useful.