Chef cooks for president

A chef who started his career washing dishes at the Robin Hood Hotel, Newark, has cooked for his fifth US president.

Mr Darren McGrady, 48, cooked for George Bush Junior at a charity meal in Dallas, Texas, last month. He has also cooked for presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and George Bush Senior.

Mr McGrady said president Bush Junior praised his cooking, saying: “Hey big fella. This food is as good as the White House.”

Mr McGrady was born in Newark, and lived on Shelton Avenue before moving to Fairway with his parents, Mr and Mrs Michael McGrady.

He attended Sconce Hills School and worked as a dishwasher at the Robin Hood Hotel before attending Clarendon Catering College, Nottingham, and Westminster College, London.

He cooked for two years at the Savoy Hotel, London, and in 1982 became a senior chef at Buckingham Palace, where he worked for 11 years.

He was personal chef to Princess Diana for four years until her death, in 1997.

He moved to Dallas, where he now works as a chef and event planner for a billionaire.

He has appeared on several television programmes in the United States and devotes much of his free time to charity work after being inspired by the example of Princess Diana.

Mr McGrady said his favourite memory of cooking was for Margaret Thatcher, who thanked him personally after he made her petit fours decorated with her Cambridge crest in food colouring.

He said it was an honour to have cooked for some of the world’s most powerful figures.

“Sure, you are under a lot of pressure, but it is really just a case of keeping up the culinary standards,” he said.

Mr McGrady has released a book, Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen. Money from the book will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation, a charity that seeks to prevent HIV infection in children. His website is www.theroyalchef.com