Who better to cook up a right royal celebration for the coronation than a former chef in the royal household? Carolyn Robb was personal chef to Charles – and Princes William and Harry – for over a decade when he was the Prince of Wales
Some of South African-born Carolyn Robb’s earliest memories are of cooking with her mother. She has told HELLO! that she remembers thinking: “As quite a young child, that one day I’d like to cook for the Queen.”
Carolyn, who swapped university for cookery school, was selected, alongside two other Cordon Bleu students, to go to Kensington Palace for an interview for the position of chef to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. “I was successful, and at 21, I began my first job in the royal household,” the chef recalls.
Carolyn was in the right place at the right time when, two years later, she was hired by the Prince of Wales, who was looking to shake up his kitchen staff by adding a female cook. Already working at Kensington Palace, the move was a dream come true for the ambitious 23-year-old chef and recent graduate of the esteemed Tante Marie Culinary Academy.
“It was a very exciting time and presented extraordinary experiences and opportunities – sometimes I had to pinch myself,” Carolyn says. “From cooking on the Royal Yacht while sailing up the Amazon to picking wild mushrooms on the Balmoral estate, every day was different, and every day was busy.”
As Carolyn’s former boss celebrates his coronation as King, she talks exclusively to HELLO!
about happy times at Highgrove, learning from the then Prince of Wales and why we couldn’t ask for a better monarch than Charles.
Carolyn, which royals have you worked for?
“My first job in the royal household was for the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, when I was straight out of cookery school. I spent a wonderful two years working for them, before moving from Apartment 1 at Kensington Palace to Apartments 8 and 9, when I got my dream job – cooking for the then Prince of Wales, Princess Diana and Princes William and Harry. The next 11 years were truly amazing.”
You must have a place in the history books as a royal chef who has cooked for two future Kings – both Charles and William, now Prince of Wales. How does that make you feel?
“It is an extraordinary thought and something I hadn’t previously considered. It was an enormous privilege, but I also feel very lucky to have had such a wonderful boss, who was always so appreciative and who taught me so much, and shaped the way I cook through his incredible foresight and concern for the environment.
“Cooking for ch
