Fit for a prince

SINGAPORE — Jasmine rose tea bonbons garnished with herb dill. Mantou served with dark chocolate. These are but a small sampling of what Prince Harry and over 350 guests will get to savour at a high tea reception for the young royal who is in Singapore this weekend.

The “English-inspired affair” with a “local” twist will be held at the Singapore Polo Club on Monday (June 5) where Prince Harry will participate in the Sentebale Royal Salute Polo Cup — a charity that he had started together with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.

To host such a royal event, the catering company tasked with feeding the prince and hundreds of guests started preparations as early as Friday, two-and-a-half days ahead of the reception. But planning the menu and testing the foods began much earlier.

The team at local caterer Shiso Gourmet Catering had “less than three weeks”, a shorter time frame compared to their usual projects, to finalise a menu fit for a prince.

Noting that the guests made out of “30 per cent delegates” and “70 per cent locals”, Jeslyn Chan, 39, Shiso sales director, said the biggest challenge for them was to develop a menu that satisfies both “British and local palates”.

Led by executive chef James Heng, 35, who will be assisted by four chefs in the kitchen, the team came up with a menu using products from the premium Waitrose 1 range — the British brand that holds The Royal Warrant of Appointment to supply groceries to the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

More than half of the selection available in Singapore, such as biscuits, teas, chocolates, and lemon curd, have been incorporated into the high tea event.

“We used the first week to rush and get the right ingredients to match with Waitrose 1 products to finalise the menu. One it was finalised, we kickstarted everything within the last two weeks,” said Heng. 


The first week saw the team spending many hours on research and trial and error, sometimes late into the night, including “seven to eight rounds” of internal food tasting.

“I ate a lot, including four types of chocolate bars and a few boxes of biscuits... Around 17 or 20 products,” said Heng.

While he is anxious about having British royalty sampling and critiquing the food, he remains “pretty confident” that Prince Harry will like the prepared selection.

One of the dishes that he has high hopes for? The local-infused mantou served with Waitrose 1 dark chocolate spread. “We thought that Prince Harry would want to try something local, especially since this is the first time he’s here in Singapore,” he said.

As the products are available at local supermarkets like Cold Storage, some of the dishes served during the high tea reception can be easily replicated, he said.

But not all are equally easy to make.

“Bonbons, also known as spheres, take the longest time to prepare due to the many number of steps needed for preparation. We were inspired by the exquisite flavours of the Waitrose 1 teas, so we came up with ideas such as the Jasmine Rose Tea bonbons. We had to first steep the tea to the correct concentration, before we could start on making the bonbons,” he explained.