Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: Peter Gordon Cooked For The Queen

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Kiwi Chef Peter Gordon talks about cooking for the Queen - so, what do you cook if her Majesty is turning up? Tricky, since he couldn't be told who his guest was going to be...See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a bonus podcast from Jono and Ben on The Hits. We're talking a lot about the Queen the last couple of days after her passing and Kiwis with connections to her. And joining us right now on 100 The Hits is celebrity chef Peter Gordon. Morena. Oh Morena, how are you? Lovely to have you on. Just Peter Gordon's a wonderful chef. What restaurant are you running at the moment, Peter? We have Homeland down in Westhaven Drive. It's a cook school, dining room, retail space.

I work with communities and it's a really good space, actually. Awesome. You can catch Peter as well Thursday nights on TVNZ for Bake Off as well. But Peter, we understand that you have cooked, that you've made a meal for the Queen before. I have. It was just a lunch for four, so it wasn't one of those ones that you sometimes get asked to do,

you know, do a big banquet or do one course, and there's a whole lot of other chefs. It was literally a lunch for four people of which one was the Queen, one was the Duke, and then there was Sir Don and Lady Clare McKinnon in their house in London. Wow. What are we talking, cheese-toasted sandwiches? What are we doing there, Peter Gordon?

Yeah, really flash toasty. I did salmon two ways to start. My dad sent me over some manuka wood chips, so I smoked some salmon for her. And main course was a Welsh black beef with some celeriac gratin and stuff. Dessert was shortbread, my grandmother's shortbread, with a roasted rhubarb and chocolate delete.

That's delicious. And I did that because my grandmother had met the Queen once herself getting a medal from the Queen for her community service here in New Zealand. And then they had cheese. So I imagine there's a lot of protocol that goes in. I mean, how did they approach you about this? And did you know you were cooking for the Queen? And when did they drop that sort of bombshell? Well, Claire and Don are friends and they'd been round to their house for dinner a few times,

and Don was Secretary General of the Commonwealth at that point, but he was standing down. So they phoned up and said, or Claire phoned up and said, look, Petey, you know, we'd love you to come round and cook a dinner. Would you like to do that as part of Don's farewell? And I said, oh, that'd be amazing. I'd love to. You know, Don, it's been wonderful to do something for you guys. And then I said, what would you like to eat? And they said, oh, well, you need to submit a menu.

And I was like, well, what do you want? Oh, well, you need to. I said, well, so who's coming? Thinking, well, if I know who's coming, I can decide what they want. You know, who is it going to be? And Claire said, we can't tell you. And I thought, OK, that's got to be the Queen. Otherwise, Claire is making this very difficult. Yeah. And then it was just a process of thinking, what would the Queen actually want to eat?

So it was a really tasty menu, and it was all lovely and nice, but it was definitely targeted towards the right person. Did you get nervous? No, no, I wasn't nervous at all until I was down in the basement of their house doing the food. And I was down there with the head of the Queen's security for the day. And then I just began to feel a little bit nervous because she was, you know, keeping a close eye on what I was up to. But she was very pleasant. I hadn't felt nervous.

I was just saying, oh, I'm just cooking lunch for someone. And then it was like, shit, it's the Queen. And her security guard is looking over everything I'm doing. Was the security guard like, oh, wouldn't do that? It's like you guys are bake-offs. I cooked for her too. She had some kai, so she was very happy. And you met her that day?

Yeah, I met her that day. Not, you know, for like all of probably 15 seconds or so. And that was really, it was really cute. It was really nice, you know. And I often find myself, the whole time I've been doing anything, whether it was cooking for Barack Obama or Condoleezza Rice or whoever, you know, these things you end up doing, you're in Downing Street suddenly cooking lunch for two prime ministers.

I find myself sort of going, God, I'm just a kid from Castlecliff and Whanganui and look at what I'm doing. And now I'm about to meet the Queen. So, yeah, that sort of drives me quite a bit sometimes. Oh, can you imagine? Gave you an OBE or was that right? Or auto-merit? Yeah, I got an ONZM which had nothing to do with the lunch.

The lunch was so good. Other stuff, yeah, lunch was so good. So it was an award, a gong awarded by the New Zealand government, but I asked if I could get it presented in the UK, and I happened to pick a date at Windsor when the Queen presented it, so I got to meet her a second time. So, yeah, we're really close friends. Did she remember that you cooked the lunch for her? As I went up to get my award, and they sort of pinned it on you,

you told, do not ask a question, she'll ask you one question, and I thought, fair enough, there's a lot of people she's got to get through, she can't be there for a chit chat and then I said, I couldn't help myself as I approached, I said I have to say something and so she puts on to this very nice and I said, oh actually I've met you before

I cooked for you at Claire and Don's house you know, forgetting to call Don and Claire Sue and Lady and she looked at me and she said, oh you're the New Zealand chef and I said yes so yeah, we've had deep conversations Rich conversations I was a huge fan of the Queen

so you know like many people I think, oh she's gone Oh no, well Peter Gordon, what an absolute tale it seems like when New Zealand needs to impress people at a dinner table phone Peter Gordon, what an absolute tale. It seems like when New Zealand needs to impress people at a dinner table, phone Peter Gordon. Get him on it.

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