This Is How Food Reaches Queen Elizabeth In The Palace

buckingham palace butler route — (Image credit: Tim Rooke/REX/Shutterstock)

Those poor butlers run a daily marathon.

Queen Elizabeth and the royal family are renowned for their dinner parties and banquets, hosting bigwigs and foreign country elites at their humble abode. While we’ve all seen the pomp and the glamour that comes with the shindigs, we’ve never really taken a moment to consider what goes on behind-the-scenes and Buckingham Palace has finally shown us a rare insight behind the iron gates.

The official royal family Twitter account shared what life is like in a palace butler’s shoes, showing the lengthy route they have to take in order to get from the kitchen through to the Chinese Drawing Room, a dining room frequently used for royal occasions. The video takes viewers along for the ride and it’s a good thing it’s sped up, as it’s a bit of a journey.

Starting off in a very clinical looking basement, butlers have to go through a couple of doors, jump in the lift, cut across a grand portrait room, travel down a long Buckingham Palace hallway that could give The Shining a run for its money and then take a hard left to reach the Chinese Drawing Room. (We’re tired even just writing all of that out.)

Buckingham Palace has been undergoing some major renovations to bring the iconic structure into the 21st century, which includes shortening that pretty ridiculous expedition by making a couple of changes.

In the Twitter post, the royal family wrote, ‘Many of the lifts at the Palace are old and impractical...The route will be more practical & efficient when new lifts are installed’.

In the meantime though, the Palace butlers are going to have to make sure they’ve got a great pair of running shoes and a great bleep test score. Imagine doing that route laden down with stacks of plates as well…

Other planned changes to the palace include updating its electrical cabling, plumbing and heating - all of which hasn’t been updated since the 50s. Here’s hoping that Liz at least has air-conditioning this summer, those shoddy little electric fans just don’t quite do the job in this 30 degree heat.

Megan is a freelance journalist who covers entertainment and all things lifestyle, with a particular passion for fashion, beauty, travel and Keanu Reeves stories. She has previously worked on staff for titles including Marie Claire UK, CNN Style and The Evening Standard and has written for titles such as Bustle UK, Wallpaper*, Forbes and Hong Kong Tatler. She splits her time between London and her hometown Hong Kong, where she currently lives with the love of her life - an elderly dog named Poppy - and her husband.