EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Hotel received royal warrant from Queen Elizabeth to scrap David Linley decor

The Goring Hotel has been so well favored by successive generations of the Royal Family that it is sometimes almost regarded as an annex to Buckingham Palace – a special status very publicly recognized ten years ago when Queen Elizabeth bestowed a Royal Warrant upon it.

But is that intimate bond about to break? I ask because of what is, by the stately standards of the Goring, revolutionary news regarding the dining hall.

It is there that the Queen Mother took great pleasure in eating Eggs Drumkilbo, one of the hotel’s signature dishes packed with as much lobster as egg, and where, three years after her death at the age of 101 in 2002, her beloved grandson, David Linley, now Lord Snowdon, went to work.

Redecorating the room with handcrafted walnut columns and coating walls in soothing shades of toffee and biscuit – and installing three Swarovski crystal chandeliers – he had, it was generally agreed, triumphantly done. Indeed, the Goring’s website described the converted dining room as a “luxurious environment,” which was neither stuffy old-fashioned nor fashionably modern.

But now, I’m told, Linley’s efforts have ceased to work their magic – at least on Jeremy Goring, the fourth generation at the helm of the family hotel.

Owned by successive generations of the Royal Family, the Goring Hotel is sometimes regarded as almost an annex to Buckingham Palace

The Goring’s website described the converted dining room as a “luxurious setting,” which was neither stuffy old-fashioned nor fashionably modern.

“There’s a sense that the dining room is kind of tired and outdated now,” my husband tells me, feasting on the honey-glazed guinea fowl on the Michelin-starred menu.

‘There will be a complete makeover, so that the space is no longer one flat, but is divided by placing benches in the middle, giving it more of a brasserie feel.’

Goring, who succeeded his father, ‘Mr George’, as head man of the hotel in 2005, declined to comment. But some of the hotel’s devotees are already mourning the erasing of the old era.

‘The summer drink hasn’t been since the tragedy of the first lockdown’, one looks back. Meanwhile, another, lamenting Linley’s imminent disappearance from work, sighs and says, “Having lunch there made you feel like royalty.”

Bella Mackie, bestselling author of How To Kill Your Family, had never been treated to a meal by a suitor until she met Radio 1 DJ Greg James in 2017. The couple are now married. “He booked dinner after we went to a comedy show… which I thought was extraordinary because I had never gone on a date with anyone who had taken me out to dinner before,” the novelist, 39, tells Ruthie’s Table 4 podcasts. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is incredibly mature of you.'”

Gigi’s model support for Vogue boss

British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful is determined to leave the magazine in style – if we are to judge by his last meeting.

Top model Gigi Hadid joined Enninful, who allegedly lost a power struggle with Vogue supremo Anna ‘Nuclear’ Wintour, at private club Oswald’s in Mayfair. Hadid, 28, was wearing white sunglasses and holding a green snakeskin handbag.

It was announced last week that 51-year-old Enninful (inset) — the first man and first black person to edit British Vogue — will take on a new global role at publisher Conde Nast next year.

Top model Gigi Hadid (pictured) joined Enninful, who reportedly lost a power struggle with Vogue supremo Anna ‘Nuclear’ Wintour, at private club Oswald’s in Mayfair

British Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful (pictured), is determined to leave the magazine in style – if we can judge by his last meeting

Snapshot of the late Queen’s sense of fun

Queen Elizabeth’s mischievous sense of humor is fondly recalled by Philip Hammond.

“The Queen came to a totally fake cabinet meeting,” the former chancellor says during a live recording of The Political Party Podcast.

Afterwards, ministers posed with Her Majesty for a photo. “Everyone sat there, the queen in the middle, like puffed up shirts, looking at the camera,” he says.

‘Immediately the picture was taken and the Queen said, ‘God, is that it?’, and everyone burst into laughter.

“Then, of course, the photographer took a second shot with everyone laughing open-mouthed in disarray. . . except for the queen, who sat there with her hands still on her knees.’

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