Prue Leith Reveals the Royal Family Blunder 'That Upset Me the Most' (Exclusive)

Stacy LambeMon, May 25, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC

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Princess Margaret; Prue Leith; and Queen Elizabeth
Credit: Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty; Ian West/PA Images via Getty; Anwar Hussein/WireImage -

Prue Leith recalls three royal mishaps, including serving Queen Elizabeth a poorly made cup of tea in 1986

A disastrous meal for Princess Margaret at Leith's restaurant involved a snobbish waiter, a fire and staged customers

Leith shares these anecdotes in her new memoir, Being Old and Learning to Love It!, now available for purchase

Despite her esteemed reputation as a chef, restaurateur, writer and TV personality, Prue Leith admits to making a fool of herself in front of the royal family — not just once, but three times throughout her career.

"I actually think there's something about the royal family, they jinx things," Leith, 86, quips to PEOPLE. "Because I think what happens is people get quite overexcited at the thought of them and then everything seems to go wrong. You talk to any caterer and they'll tell you drama stories about the royals."

In her new memoir, Being Old and Learning to Love It!, Leith details the three particular instances when things went poorly around the royals. One involved Queen Elizabeth, who was opening the Queen Elizabeth Centre (QEII Centre) in Westminster, London, in 1986.

According to Leith, whose company had secured the catering contract for the conference facility at the time, the late Queen was set to walk down a line of dignitaries before arriving at the end, where the former Great British Baking Show judge was waiting to serve her tea.

'Being Old and Learning to Love It!' by Prue Leith
Credit: Octopus Books

However, she did not know how the Queen liked her tea and was forced to make a cup on the spot. That's when the trouble started. After fumbling with the order, a strong black tea, Leith reveals that she presented the Queen with a "weak lemony tea served by a half-wit."

Looking back on the incident now, Leith says, "Personally, the thing that upset me most was not giving the Queen a decent cup of tea, because I much admired the Queen and I thought, 'Poor bloody woman. She's been walking around this extremely boring building for two hours… By the time she got to me, she must have been absolutely panting for a cup of tea, and I failed completely.' "

"That was a pity," she adds before explaining why "the Princess Margaret story was the worst."

In her book, she details a horrifying (yet hilarious) tale about when the late Countess of Snowdon and sister of Queen Elizabeth dined at her restaurant, Leith's, in the late 1960s.

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Not only did Leith stand on her toe, but the princess was at the center of a disastrous meal involving a "snobbish head waiter" who refused to serve the royal what she wanted, a venison casserole, and insisted that the kitchen make her roast pheasant, which the restaurant did not have.

According to Leith, the back and forth with the waiter spilled over into the kitchen, where he caught on fire while refilling a flame lamp. In an attempt to put him out, Leith — whose hands were covered in flour from prepping fish for the staff's dinner — patted him down, leaving white handprints all over his black uniform.

It's actually one of two moments involving Princess Margaret, with the other being right after Leith got out of cooking school and she was tasked with serving the royal lobster and caviar. However, the former student had never cooked lobster before and nearly botched the whole preparation before the butler saved her from total disaster.

Prue Leith outside her restaurant in 1969
Credit: Joe Bangay/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty

Luckily, the near-miss with lobster wasn't as bad as the dining service at her restaurant, a horrible experience that "just went on and on," Leith tells PEOPLE.

She adds, "the restaurant was empty, I had to marshal waiters to try and look like customers, try and look like what looked like sophisticated, smart customers. The waiters were all clicking their fingers at their colleagues, who weren't actually being waiters."

"Then I had a quarrel with a head waiter, who didn't want to give the princess what she wanted. He said, 'I will not serve stew to a princess.' I said, 'Why did I ever hire this guy? He's terrible,' " she recalls of the incident.

While the waiter did not stick around much longer after that, Leith reveals that Princess Margaret — who was one of many A-listers, including the Rolling Stones, Alec Guinness and others, who ate at Leith's — "did come back to the restaurant later with some other friends and had a perfectly harmless meal."

Being Old and Learning to Love It! is now available wherever books are sold.

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