Princess Diana's former personal chef opens fish and chip van in US ahead of the Coronation

Princess Diana’s former personal chef has swapped God Save The Queen for Cod Save The King after opening a fish and chip van in the United States.

For 15 years Darren McGrady worked in the kitchen of Buckingham Palace during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, cooking for five US presidents, before becoming Diana’s personal chef following her split from Charles.

And while Darren says the late Princess would have thought he was mad to make such an extreme career move, he reckons she’d have enjoyed pulling on a tabard and serving hungry customers behind the counter.

‘Diana would have thought I was crazy launching a fish and chip van, but would have loved the idea,’ Darren told MailOnline.

‘As we know, she loved shocking people in a nice way, and I think she’d have enjoyed popping up at the window to serve people their fish and chips!’

Princess Diana’s former personal chef, Darren McGrady, has opened up a fish and chips van in Dallas, Texas

The Royal chef worked for Princess Diana for four years after working in Buckingham Palace for 15 years

Darren told MailOnline he has customer that comes by ‘seven times a week to eat fish, chips, and peas, which is delicious but admittedly not very healthy’

While Darren adored his time cooking for the Royal Family, following Di’s death in 1997 he decided he’d haddock enough of the UK and so off he skated to America where he’d enjoyed visiting with The Queen, going from ‘The Palace to Dallas’ as a private chef in the Texan city.

Darren also became YouTube food influencer ‘The Royal Chef’ where his ‘Winston the Corgi’ stuffed toy mascot was created, and which has seen him appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN’s Larry King Live, among others.

But, unimpressed by the quality of food being served up as his local British pubs, Darren decided to start his own venture.

And so Winston’s British Fish ‘N’ Chips van launched in the car park of a church of Vancouver, Washington, serving what’s arguably the UK’s favourite dish to hungry Americans and British ex-pats.

Jokes Darren, ‘I have cooked for Kings, Queens, and Presidents – but you know you have made it when you have a food truck!

‘If you think creating a state banquet at Buckingham Palace is pressure, try being on a food truck with 50 orders lined up and loads of hungry people waiting for their food!

‘But you know you’re doing something good when ex pats praise the curry sauce. We even have one customer who comes seven times a week to eat fish, chips, and peas, which is delicious but admittedly not very healthy!’

Explaining why he decided to launch the chip shop van, and whether his regal former bosses would have enjoyed eating his wares, Darren goes on, ‘There are too many British pubs here that buy in frozen, ready-battered thin pieces of pollock which snaps when it’s fried.

The royal chef, who cooked for the Queen at Buckingham Palace for 11 years, went on to work for the Princess of Wales in Kensington Palace following her unofficial separation from Prince Charles in 1993

While Darren says the late Princess would have thought he was mad to make such an extreme career move, he reckons she’d have enjoyed pulling on a tabard and serving hungry customers behind the counter

Darren also became YouTube food influencer ‘The Royal Chef’ where his ‘Winston the Corgi’ stuffed toy mascot was created, and which has seen him appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN’s Larry King Live, among others

‘I just wanted to bring a taste of Britain to the U.S. because whenever I talk to American friends who’ve been to the UK they say, “I love their fish and chips”.

‘Almost everybody loves fish and chips, though not Diana – she’d have said, ‘Oh no, Darren, that will go straight to my hips!’

‘Princes William and Harry were kids and so were of course fans of anything fried. We sell The Kings [chicken] Wings, and they loved BBQ sauce so they would have liked them. And my curry sauce too – they both loved curry.’

Naturally, given Darren’s Royal culinary background, Winston’s food is all rather more high-end than your average chippy.

‘I wanted the food truck to be the Harrod’s of food trucks,’ says Darren, who grew up in Newark, Notts, and remains a big Nottingham Forest fan.

‘I wanted a solid and beautiful box that when we pass it through the window it feels like being in Tiffany’s. It’s all about that first impression.

‘The presentation had to be beautiful – so we designed the box with The Times themed “newspaper” in it.

‘I remember as a kid going with my granddad to the fish and chip shop, and he made me carry a big handful of tied up newspapers.

Darren (centre) said that some of his fondest memories from working with the royals were dancing with the Queen at the Ghillies Ball and holding Prince Harry as a baby at Windsor when Diana came into the kitchen

Winston’s British Fish N Chip van, covered in a Union Jack flag and cartoon corgis 

The business owners are now hoping to open vans across the country by the end of the year – and Darren even plans to sell Winston’s merchandise

‘Because back then, fish and chips were served in newspapers, and you would get extra chips or a piece of fish or something like that in return for bringing newspapers to the shop.’

The van was the brainchild of Darren’s business partner Timothy Johnson. While doing research, he contacted the chef via his YouTube channel – on which he shows how to make classic British dishes like Victoria Sponge, and ‘Spaggy Bol’ for Prince William and Harry’ – about a consulting role.

‘On my channel, I made fish and chips and said how much I missed them,’ Darren explains. ‘My agent got a call from Timothy asking if I would consider starting a fish and chips truck.

‘We chatted and I realised his passion for fish and chips growing up was like mine, so I said I’d do one.

‘But we quickly realised it had the potential to be bigger than that and having created Winston, an animated cartoon Corgi, I called the van Winston’s. Seeing the kids’ faces when they get a mini-Winston with their food was wonderful – it’s the perfect branding.’

The pair are now planning to expand the brand, hoping to open vans across the country by the end of the year – and Darren even plans to sell Winston’s merchandise.

‘It’s early days but I have been blown away by its popularity. I don’t know anyone else who has done it.

‘Soon we will have three in Vancouver, the next will be in Dallas, then the merchandise will start coming out including Winston’s kids’ books, where he travels the world. It’s all good fun.

‘We have had so many people reach out to us saying that we should come to LA, New York, and Chicago. I’ve no idea if we can grow that quickly but we will see.’

Most outlets will be stationary, but Winston’s will also have a smaller van that will travel to events.

Having created dishes for the Queen’s famous corgis, Darren is targeting Corgi Beach Day, an annual charity event which draws thousands of people, and more than 500 of the late Queen’s favourite breed of dog.

‘I was amazed when we got contacted by the organisers saying there was this corgi event on the beach in Vancouver,’ he says.

‘Winston came about because one of the first jobs I had at Buckingham Palace was preparing food for the Queen’s corgis – lamb, liver, beef, chopped finely so they don’t choke on any bones, mixed with cabbage – it was a full-time job being a dog chef!

‘But you can’t have a real dog in the kitchens, so I got a toy one instead. We did a poll on YouTube to come up with a name, and Winston won.’

Darren’s royal adventure started after Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and the chef – whose culinary career started at The Savoy Hotel – slept outside the Buckingham Palace to watch the Royal Wedding.

The following day, Darren wrote to Queen Elizabeth II asking to cook for her – and remarkably won a job peeling carrots for Her Majesty’s horses.

As he wrote in Newsweek last year: ‘I remember thinking, “What on earth am I doing?” I was peeling carrots for the groom to come to take and put in the Queen’s riding jacket pocket, so she could feed a horse at the end of her ride.’

Eventually, Darren worked his way up to Senior Chef, and had several touching interactions with the Queen.

He recalled, ‘So many times she would come into the kitchen or stop outside and look in a kitchen window that was open and say, “Thank you for a lovely weekend. The food was incredible.” To me, that meant more than a money. This was the Queen.

‘She had this way of making you feel like you were the only person in the world at that moment. She was amazing.’

Revealing her particular tastes, Darren said: ‘The Queen ate to live, she wasn’t a foodie, and we knew our parameters. We couldn’t just take cuttlefish and put it on the menu, we had to use the foods that she liked.

‘I soon learned that the Queen was a chocoholic. She loved dark chocolate so anything we put on the menu with dark chocolate in it was always a winner.

‘She loved indigenous produce from her gardens, and she loved to be able to say to her guests that the produce they were eating was grown on the estate.

‘She loved the venison from Balmoral and the partridge and pheasant from Sandringham.

‘She could buy anything she wanted, but to have something grown or to take something like venison from her estate meant so much to her.

‘I remember she enjoyed beef tenderloin with a whiskey mushroom cream sauce or a nice piece of venison, but I will always remember Sunday lunches.

‘We’d have a roast rib of beef and everything to go with it – Yorkshire pudding, parsnips and mashed potatoes, and the queen always had the first slice of the beef.

‘She liked her beef well done, and it drove the chefs crazy, but she was old school and would always have that first slice on the front laid out for her to take, the tastiest part.’

But what about fish and chips with mushy peas and curry sauce? Says Darren, ‘She did eat fish and chips, but the fish was never fried, and the chips were more refined, not chippy chips.

‘The Queen eating Fish and chips out of a newspaper? No chance! I once read a story in a newspaper about how she once sent a chauffeur in to bring back fish and chips home – never happened!’

After Charles and Diana separated, Darren was assigned to assigned to Diana and her children, Princes William and Harry.

Says Darren, ‘With the Queen, it was lots of traditional French cuisine, lots of creams and butters and fat.

‘Princess Diana had lots of vegetables, steamed fish, and poached chicken. We also had the boys, Prince William and Prince Harry, who loved comfort foods like shepherd’s pie, pizza, fried chicken, and ribs. My job was trying to balance the two so everybody was happy.’

Away from his fish and chip vans, Darren will next month (MAY) open a Winston’s van in his hometown of Dallas to coincide with the coronation of King Charles III – even though he admits that, as Di’s former chef, he had mixed feelings about the ascension of Charles to the throne.

‘The goal is to be up and running before May 6 – fish and chips and Royal scones would be ideal. The truck is ready to roll and as soon as we get through the admin, we will be rolling it out – with me serving behind the counter,’ he says.

Of Charles becoming monarch, Darren adds, ‘I joined Diana at the time of the separation, and it sounds awful now but back then you were Team Charles or Team Diana.

‘I’d been in love with the Princess for 11 years and got to know her well. I was Team Diana and was in her camp.

‘They were tough times for her, like anyone doing through divorce. I saw it. But it’s been 26 years now, the world has moved on, and while she’d have made a great Queen, things happen.

‘I’m a monarchist and love the Royal Family, and we have Wills and Kate who will be fantastic. But right now, we have Charles as monarch and if Camilla makes him happy it’s time to move on, and they will make a great King and Queen.’

With Prince Harry now living in California with his wife Meghan, might that be a future destination for a Winston’s van, despite its reputation as a super-healthy part of the States?

Says Darren, ‘There are so many Brit ex-pats in California and we all miss fish and chips, but they don’t really sell it, so I think it would do well. And if Harry came, he gets as many fish and chips as he likes – all for free, of course!’

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