The Local Chef Who Cooked for the Queen

Remembering Queen Elizabeth: 1926-2022

Most folks in Fayette County hearing the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death can hardly imagine the pomp and ceremony of a Royal funeral and the upcoming coronation of the new British King, Charles III. That’s not the case for Chef Mike Morphew of Le Petite Gourmet Shoppe of La Grange. Morphew worked in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace from 1969 to 1971, where he cooked meals for the Royal Family.

“It’s going to be in panic mode at the moment,” Morphew said of the Palace. “It’s probably going to be the biggest state funeral that anyone has ever seen. There’ll be chefs running around everywhere. Everything will be in chaos getting ready.”

Morphew said he never ac-tually got to meet the Queen during his time at Buckingham, although he once came close.

“On my last day there – this was before they opened it to the public – the head chef at the time said, ‘You’ve done so well, I’m going to give you a tour of the palace,’” said Moprhew. “It was amazing. I remember going up this spiral staircase and he said, ‘She’s just in there, through that door.’ I was tempted to go knock on the door.”

He didn’t, though.

“Underneath the Palace, it’s like a maze,” he recalled. “They drive around in little electric cars. There’s a post office down there. There’s stores. It’s perfectly self-contained.”

Morphew, who grew up in England, said the Queen’s passing comes with great sadness for the majority of Britons who love and respect the Monarch as a living embodiment of the nation.

“For people of my era, it’s something you were brought up with – total respect,” Morphew said. “These people, for hundreds of years, have carried on. Some good, some bad. But ultimately, the majority of the people of my era were brought up to respect them. Obviously there are a lot of people who are antiroyalty. But I think on the whole you will find 90 percent, in England especially, are 100 percent behind Charles and whoever else takes it up after him.” King Charles’ oldest son, Prince William, is now the heirapparent to the British Throne. Surveys in the United Kingdom indicate William is far more popular than his father – a sentiment Morphew shared.

“If you want my honest opinion, I would have rather seen William take it right away,” Morphew said. “Charles has been a bit of a strange person over the years,” he added. “People have seen him talking to flowers and all these different things.” Morphew said he believes the British public will still support the King despite their misgivings.

“He’s actually matured into, I think, a really good man,” Morphew said. “He still holds the problem of all the Diana issues. Although they’ll stand by him as King, I think the majority of the British public old enough to remember Diana still hold that grudge.”

While Morphew never met the Queen in person, he did know her tastes quite well.

“Unless it was a special event, she would eat very, very plainly,” Morphew said. “If you think about it, out of 365 days in a year, she would be on the road for 200 of them, and whenever she goes anywhere, they try to impress her with the finest foods and the finest wines. So at the Palace, she would often eat very plainly.”

The British people are well known for their hearty breakfasts – the famous “Full English” – with bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, beans and a type of blood sausage known as “black pudding.” Morphew said the Queen, in contrast, commonly started her day with just a boiled egg and buttered toast. Morphew said one of the Queen’s favorite dishes at the Palace was one that could be found on the table of any English cottage – lamb chops and steamed broccoli.

“The sauce she really liked with lamb was ‘paloise,’ which is a mint-flavored hollandaise,” Morphew said.

The Prince of Wales was a young man when Morphew worked at the Palace, before Charles married Princess Diana.

“He was very much into healthy things,” Morphew said. “Like muesli and yogurt. He would keep off extremely rich foods unless he was being entertained.”