I Ate the Dinner That's Getting Served to Oscars Celebrities

I’ve never watched the Oscars. It’s long, repetitive and everyone’s doing their best to come across as humble by thanking their neighbour, their hairdresser and their second favourite accent coach. I’d personally rather watch three-and-a-half hours of wasted A-listers trying to avoid getting custard on their custom Dior gowns. 

Apparently, it’s more common than you think at the Governors Ball, the official gala afterparty attended by pretty much every celebrity who walks down the red carpet. “It does get messy,” admits Elliott Grover, the executive chef of CUT at 45 Park Lane, a super luxurious fine-dining restaurant where you can order a glass of Japanese whisky for a humble £900.

Grover is the first Brit in years to cater the event, which falls on the 12th of March this year. Alongside renowned chef Wolfgang Puck, who has become somewhat of a permanent fixture for the last 30 years or so in the Oscars kitchen, Grover is serving a menu of fish and chips, chicken pot pie and sherry trifle – all very traditional British staples that working-class folks like me grew up eating.

It’s post-wartime food that appeals to the masses and doesn’t break the bank. But, let’s be honest, it’s not the most glamorous thing to serve at the 95th Academy Awards. You can’t really picture Martin Scorsese at a chippy, can you? 

“It’s true, but hopefully when I go to America we can change the perception there,” Grover tells me optimistically. “Americans always say they want to try the fish and chips.” 

True, but what about all those memes taking the piss out of bland “Bri’ish” food? Is Jessica Chastain really going to have to eat a styrofoam cup of mushy pies – and more crucially, will she like it just as much as us commoners? I went down to Grover’s kitchen to try out the Oscars menu on our behalf to see if it lives up to our standards. 

Blackpool fish and chips, wrapped in soggy newspaper, were my seaside experience. The ink was gross, everything would fall out and you’d lose a chunk of chips to the seagulls, but it was worth it for the taste. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of it as a go-to starter for an assembly of Ozempic-starved celebs, though.

Grover’s version is a miniature take on the dish, but it’s still deep fried and I’m pretty sure there’ll be a lot of unhappy personal trainers the next day. “People will be celebrating so they’ll be more open to it and it’s only a four-biter,” he says in his defence. “I might get away with it – maybe.”

Instead of newspaper, a bamboo cone (very sustainable) will hold a mini battered haddock, about three beef-dripping chips, a dollop of mushy peas and a slice of lemon. He’s even thrown a wooden fork in there to solidify the proper chippy experience.

I notice the batter is thinner than what you’d find in an average chippy, and the haddock is soft, flaky and very subtly fishy – in a good way. It’s a haddock that doesn’t want to scream about the fact it’s a haddock, and I appreciate that. You don’t want to be turning to chat to Paul Mescal with seafood breath.

I’m not usually a tartar sauce-goer, but I try this one. To my surprise, it tastes more like a creamy, spring onion-scattered mayo dip without the sourness of normal tartar. The chips are perfectly salted, but I do look around for some tomato ketchup which isn’t there. Grover tells me that he “might add curry sauce, just to be proper British”. I’m devastated. Give me a cheap ketchup any day.

Chicken pot pie has been on the Oscars menu for over a decade. Grover explained, “it’s a perennial favourite of the guests and is the most requested dish that sees a comeback every year.” Its origin dates back to the Roman Empire but it gained popularity in sixteenth century Britain, so it blends right into the theme.

The pie was the poshest part of the meal. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of “extra special” supermarket ones – those are sublime. But they’re normally a thick, dense pastry that I drown in gravy (I’m Northern, after all). There’s no gravy to be seen for the Oscars pie, which I’m silently gutted about.

But here’s the fancy bit: there’s grated black truffle on the top which looks curiously like a shaved turtle shell. When I break into the pie, the pastry lid is so thin and flaky that it’s more like a soufflé than a pie. I scrape the puff pastry from the sides of the bowl – it’s crumbly and buttery, but not the kind that would plaster itself all over your face like a Greggs takeaway (guess no one wants to see that after you’ve just accepted a golden gong).

When I break into the inside of the pie, I’m surprised by how tender the meat is. None of this rubbery nonsense, it’s clearly expensive chicken breast. The filling is a bed of creamy chicken, peas, potatoes, carrots and English mustard but the whiff that I get from it is extraordinary. It’s like the pie just let one go, except it smelt great – and so flavoursome that it feels like you’re eating three pies in one go.

The truffle is, as you would expect, mushroom-y. I love a strong mushroom. But I fear my working-class roots probably cause me to underappreciate the lavishness and grandeur of black truffle when I can only describe it as just… a mushroom. I’m sure Meryl Streep will love it, though.

In my opinion, you can’t beat a Bird’s trifle kit. Every family gathering I had growing up wouldn’t be complete without a Bird’s trifle for dessert; my mum sometimes even throws in some tinned orange slices into the jelly for a bit of pizzazz. 

Grover’s done a great job of refining it for the one percent. Starting from the bottom, the sponge is soft and soaked in strawberry jelly, with a texture more like jam. In fact, it’s not too dissimilar to the jam you’d find in a strawberry Müller Corner, which I acknowledge is more mature and less “kids party” than a bog standard jelly. 

I’m used to the runny custard you make from powdered packets, but this custard was smooth and thick. This was my favourite part – not too sweet or too off-puttingly fluorescent yellow. The whipped cream was the most similar to my childhood memories: almost exactly how I remember the Bird’s whipped cream, and the one you get from the spray bottle, at that.

Unfortunately, there were no chocolate sprinkles to finish off the top, but there was a single maraschino cherry which, when I bit into it, did explode with cherry Bakewell tart-flavoured syrup. I can’t wait for the A-listers to hit that surprise – sticky chins galore. 

This was a surreal experience for a commoner like me. The food was superb. But I know it’d taste even better if I was sitting on my sofa watching TV. For Brits, the Oscars menu is a taste of home. For the rich and famous, it’s a taste of everyday life here; a world they’re unlikely to experience normally. 

You can gloss it up, but it’s essentially British working-class comfort food and no one can take that away from us. I’m interested to see what the posh folks think of the cuisine I grew up on, but if it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for them. And the chef’s verdict: “I’d just use the mushy peas from a tin if I could.” Now we’re talking.