Who dines at Highgrove when Prince Charles doesn’t?

Highgrove is the country house of the Prince of Wales. I write about Highgrove because, although it is not a restaurant, even of the wackiest kind — which can only make me fantasise that Ludwig of Bavaria opened a gay sauna in Neuschwanstein castle — the prince does admit strangers when he is not there and only when he is not there: on Burns Night for instance, or Mothering Sunday, and now, on St David’s Day: a black tie dinner for £95 per face including service.

The dinner is in a custom-built barn in the Hobbit style. It is made for his receptions, so I suppose it is less a barn than a giant all-weather gazebo which they call the Orchard Restaurant. (This is not as terrible a fate as you might imagine for the royal out-buildings: King Henry VIII’s tiltyard at Hampton Court is now a caff). Of course they won’t let us in the actual house, but the Orchard Restaurant is a barn/all-weather gazebo/restaurant with drama; there are lamps outside.  Inside, in an anteroom, a gathering of perhaps 80 people, of exactly the sort you would imagine dining in Prince Charles’s all-weather gazebo when he is not there, humming with social anxiety and expectation, having read the Q&A on his website: can I bring more than 26 guests? Can I bring bino-culars? Can I perform an internal examination? I instantly think: this is a party designed by Pippa Middleton of Celebrate! (top tip: when dining near Highgrove, do not wear a Team Diana cummerbund). Except everyone seems terrified, as if the prince might appear as a surprise guest. There is champagne, excellent canapés, a cloakroom, a harpist, a charming greeter and his watercolours all over the walls.