‘What do you do when you’re the son of a couple who are almost modern-day royalty?’ Inside the rise of Brooklyn Beckham as he launches his latest culinary enterprise – a pop-up takeaway in London serving wagyu beef Bolognese

Brooklyn Beckham has delighted his 16million Instagram followers with videos of him whipping up his great-grandmother Peggy’s ‘English breakfast sandwich’, creating an ‘experimental’ gin and tonic and blowtorching a cheese toastie. But his eccentric approach to cooking also had its detractors.

While his demonstrations enjoyed huge audiences, thousands posted comments lambasting his efforts.

One attempt at a Sunday roast was criticised on the grounds he used a ‘reckless’ amount of butter, and there were allegations that the joint was still ‘raw’ after cooking – this despite the fact he was flanked throughout the process by American chef Kevin Lee.

The chorus of criticism reached such a pitch that Brooklyn’s mother Victoria stepped in to stick up for him, insisting that the meat was ‘rare not raw’ and that she would be following his recipe to prepare a meal for the family.

Now Brooklyn’s creations are about to be made available to the general public for the first time. David and Victoria Beckham’s oldest is risking further ridicule by teaming up with food-delivery operator UberEats to open a pop-up eatery in east London for two days next week.

Apart from Brooklyn’s signature English breakfast sandwich, it will offer more elaborate items, such as a Chinese-style ‘dim sum’ dish and a ‘Wagyu beef Bolognese’.

While many young men would struggle to get such a project off the ground, Brooklyn’s connections meant he was able to launch the enterprise on one of the US’s biggest television programmes, ABC’s Good Morning America.

He has also roped in a host of famous American chefs to promote ‘Cooking With Brooklyn Beckham’ – as well as a prominent fellow foodie: his A-lister dad.

Explaining that he developed his cooking skill during the Covid lockdowns – when those notorious videos first began to appear on Instagrm – Brooklyn added: ‘I’m truly humbled and honoured to be on this cooking journey. This is my passion … I really hope you guys enjoy watching.‘

So why is it that Brooklyn, 24, and a multi-millionaire in his own right from modelling and brand partnerships, keeps putting himself out there even though many automatically – and not always fairly – criticise him? Especially as people who know him well maintain he is ‘extremely sensitive’.

Part of the explanation may be that he has been an integral part of Brand Beckham since infancy. Many will remember a baby Brooklyn posing up with his parents on their wedding day in pictures which were sold to OK magazine for £1million.

Some in Beckham circles attribute his high-profile role in his parents’ lucrative project – today worth in excess of £370million – for making him feel lost today.

‘I feel very sorry for him,’ admits one insider. ‘He has never really known what to do with himself.’

He has, say friends, never been able to remember a day when he wasn’t in the limelight – at the behest of his fame-loving parents.

One adds: ‘David and Victoria loved the publicity back then. It is fair to say that Brooklyn was used as a part of getting Brand Beckham off the ground.

‘He was the cute baby that finished things off rather nicely. As the others came along, they no longer needed to put themselves out there to the media and began to become stricter on the privacy of their children.’

Even when he was a teenager, Victoria would take Brooklyn to showbusiness events as her plus-one while David was working around the world.

Some say his cooking is a way of giving himself a sense of identity.

A childhood dream of becoming a footballer himself was dashed when his father signed for LA Galaxy and moved the family to Los Angeles when Brooklyn was just eight years old.

With the standard of football coaching far lower in America, David and Victoria must have known that their relocation meant the odds of him following in his father’s footsteps were stacked against him.

One friend told the Mail: ‘If they had stayed in the UK, he would have had top-quality coaching which might have meant he could play at a high standard. That was always what he really wanted to do.

‘It’s all a bit sad really. What do you do when you’re the son of a couple who are almost modern-day royalty?

‘You’re not exactly going to become a teacher or a plumber, not with the education he had.’

Brooklyn attended the £30,000-a-year Wetherby school in central London, whose former pupils include Prince William, Prince Harry and Hugh Grant.

The Beckhams are undoubtedly exceedingly loving and supportive parents and, as Brooklyn was never academically gifted, they have always been concerned about their eldest son’s future.

While David would take a step back and allow his children to enjoy their hobbies, the super-ambitious – some say pushy – Victoria wanted more for her children.

Brooklyn was just 15 when he signed a deal with controversial Chinese telecoms company Huawei as the face of its youth brand, Honor.

Shortly afterwards, when he decided he wanted to become a photographer, ‘tiger mum’ Posh stepped in to help.

Instead of allowing him to work his way in and develop his skills with an entry-level camera, she bought him cutting-edge equipment and negotiated a publishing deal for a coffee table book. The result, ‘What I see: Brooklyn Beckham’, was subsequently launched at a star-studded event at Christie’s in London.

Despite the ambitious publicity push, the book was a flop. His father, say friends, was ‘mortified’ that Brooklyn had been thrown to the wolves so publicly.

‘David always took the view that kids should be allowed to be kids and enjoy what they like to do,’ says one. ‘It didn’t mean it had to be a career.’

But Victoria was undaunted. She pulled in a favour from her good friend Rankin – a leading portrait photographer whose subjects have included the Queen and King Charles – and he hired Brooklyn as an assistant.

Their relationship proved to be short-lived, however, with Brooklyn leaving amid claims the legendary photographer’s team were shocked at how incapable he was.

At about the same time, he dropped out of Parsons School of Design in New York.

But Victoria is nothing but persistent, and her next move was to help him land a deal to photograph a campaign for Burberry’s ‘Brit’ fragrance in 2017. But that, too, prompted a backlash when acclaimed British photographer Chris Floyd branded the label’s decision to hire him a ‘devaluation of photography’ and ‘sheer nepotism’.

It also earned Victoria the nickname of the ‘Momager’ after businesswoman Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian clan.

After that Brooklyn began dabbling in modelling and Victoria diverted her energies to helping her youngest son Cruz in his efforts to become a pop star.

While middle son Romeo plays for his father’s Inter Miami football team in Florida and spends the closed season with Premier League club Brentford’s B team, Cruz – who was 11 when he released his first single, If Every Day Was Christmas, in 2016 – is understood to be back in the recording studio.

Naturally, Victoria is masterminding the project, drafting in Justin Bieber’s famed manager Scooter Braun to work with him.

As for daughter Harper, Victoria is already using her as a muse for her newly profitable fashion brand and sharing images with her 30million followers.

Today, friends say Victoria has little influence over Brooklyn’s life despite her mollycoddling him well into his adult years.

She would heavily rely on him while David played football abroad or jetted across the globe for business commitments.

Despite their close bond, following his marriage to heiress Nicola Peltz, Brooklyn decided to settle 5,400 miles away from the Beckhams’ £25million mansion in London.

The truth is the two main women in his life have had a chequered relationship.

Victoria, who has always taken a keen interest in Brooklyn’s girlfriends, was initially delighted with his choice of Nicola, 28, the daughter of billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz.

But, as is well-documented, there was a row over a wedding gown before their marriage in 2022 and, while things appear to have been patched up since, Nicola now appears to be Brooklyn’s mother hen.

She is said to be the one who pushes Brooklyn to work – there were reports he got a telling off from father-in-law Nelson for sitting around the Peltz mansion in his dressing gown – and that she is hugely proud of his achievements as a chef.

Friends say that the pair are ‘building their own brand’ and the cookery videos are helpful in getting them on to the cover of prestigious magazines, including Vogue. The couple are regularly featured in the fashion bible’s social media content and their wedding pictures appeared on the covers of both the UK and American editions last summer.

Brooklyn’s videos also help keep him in the public eye, a vital element of his appeal to sponsors.

The Peltz-Beckhams have also signed a lucrative deal with Tiffany & Co, the jeweller, while Brooklyn is an ambassador for Japanese drink brand We Sake and London-based Pepe Jeans.

Despite controversies, friends of Brooklyn say that he is a ‘really kind’ man with a ‘great heart’, if a little on ‘the shy side’.

‘It’s a shame that he was thrust into the world of celebrity,’ says one friend. ‘You have to wonder if it something he is suited to – or whether there was just never any option for his life to go a different way.’