Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Join A Cooking Session With Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Young People

It looks like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are having a ball in Australia. The royal couple has been carrying out different activities during their visit and they recently decided to visit the Charcoal Lane restaurant in Melbourne’s Fitzroy suburb to get a taste of native Australian cuisine.

The restaurant runs a program called “Mission Australia,” which is aimed at training young indigenous Australians and helping them find employment. The manager of the program Troy Crellin said that some 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have been trained and assisted by the organization and integrated into the country’s workforce, per the Mirror.

Meghan Markle and her husband had a private lunch where they enjoyed a “shared entree of mushroom and quinoa nest, along with chargrilled kangaroo and main courses of wild boar, barramundi and saffron risotto.”

Before the lunch, the royal couple visited the restaurant’s kitchen and had a talk with Executive Chef Greg Hampton, who gave the couple a tour of the kitchen and showed them exotic herbs and spices that they tasted and smelled, per the Mirror, as well as the Instagram video posted by Kensington Palace this morning.

“A lot of these ingredients have been here for thousands of years. Our fruits are the same as fruits thousands of years ago,” the chef explained to the royal couple, as quoted by the report.

Ahead of the couple’s visit, Chef Hampton told the media that he would be hesitant to offer Tasmanian pepper to pregnant Duchess Meghan because the pepper is quite hot.

“The first time I tasted one I thought I was having an allergic reaction because the heat creeps up on you. I don’t want to freak her out,” the chef said about the pepper, according to the report.

During the kitchen tour, Prince Harry jokingly commented on the kitchen and said that it’s “very clean” and also asked if it’s always like that (implying if it was cleaned up for the royal visit).

Prior to visiting the restaurant, the duke and duchess viewed a mural outside as seen in the Instagram video. Per the Mirror, the mural was created by “Gunnai and Waradgerie man Robert Young to honour the building and the area’s indigenous heritage.”

As usual, Duchess Meghan looked glamorous in her fitted navy blue dress by Australian brand Dion Lee, which she paired with a trench coat by Martin Grant and matching pointed-toe pumps, per a separate report by the Mirror.