Forget the cold-meat platter or salad buffet. Guests at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding will feast on elegant dishes created to showcase the best of British cuisine.
Officials expect the 600 VIPs invited to Buckingham Palace’s Blue Drawing Room and other state rooms to devour 10,000 snacks with champagne and wine from the royal cellars.
A team of chefs will create up to a dozen varieties of savoury hors d’oeuvres and half as many sweet ones – all approved by William, 28, and Kate, 29.
Delicacies likely to feature include smoked salmon on beetroot blini, confit duck-leg terrine with smoked duck and pear chutney, and quail eggs with celery salt, goat’s cheese, caramelised walnuts and parmesan crisps.
For dessert there’ll be chocolate truffles, blood orange pate-de-fruit and raspberry friands.
“It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says the Queen’s head chef Mark Flanagan (bottom, on the right). “We want to ensure nobody says, ‘Wasn’t the wedding amazing? But the food wasn’t up to much.’ It’s all about fine detail.”