What is Served and The Guest List at the State Banquet?
This formal dinner stands as the spectacular highlight of a official trip, a glittering feast featuring addresses, royal toasts, trumpet fanfares and exquisite cuisine and beverages.
This is statecraft served up with fine dining. A cut-glass shock-and-awe approach to entertainment meant to make a visiting leader experience grandeur.
The setting in St George's Hall inside Windsor Castle is a breathtaking scene, a blend of historic feast and Harry Potter film.
Elaborately uniformed servers around the hall are as disciplined as the soldiers who have been on display earlier. The table settings, five glasses for each guest, are impressively neat.
Menu Highlights
For the visit, the attendees, sitting behind over a thousand items of silverware, are served from a menu, written in the French language, which translates as:
- Creamy watercress mousse with cheese crisps and miniature egg dish
- Free-range poultry roulade enveloped by zucchini with a thyme and savoury sauce
- Frozen vanilla dome with Kentish raspberry sorbet interior and lightly poached seasonal fruits
Attendees enjoy a extensive selection of wines:
- English sparkling, Cuvée, 2016
- Estate white, Grand Cru, Year
- Ridge Vineyards, Vineyard, 2000
- Pol Roger, Prestige cuvée, Late 90s
After-dinner drinks will be drowning in symbolism. It's a 1945 vintage port, marking the former leader, even though he abstains from alcohol.
Also served is a century-old brandy, from the year of birth of the leader's Scotland-native mother.
For an extra touch, there's a signature drink, the International sour mix, which blends Scotch whisky with the zesty flavor of orange preserve, topped with pecan foam and a toasted marshmallow on a biscuit.
Attendees
The banquet is noticeably lacking celebrity faces or Hollywood figures. Were there people in Hollywood who discovered they had to be somewhere else?
There's not even regular royal event guests like Sir David Beckham or the music icon.
Rather, the attendee roster is filled with government figures and technology executives. Apple boss Tim Cook is there, sitting next to the president's daughter Tiffany Trump.
Press baron the news tycoon is sitting next to Sir Keir Starmer's key adviser the political consultant. The conversation must be engaging given current lawsuits.
Like at a wedding, guests are surely glancing at the seating cards around the elaborately set table to identify who they're sitting beside.
The center of attention is centrally located for the castle dinner, with the King and guest of honor in the middle of a dining table that is 47m long.
The visiting leader, as the guest of honour, is placed between King Charles and Catherine, the royal consort.
Across from them is the first lady, with a place card that says "Mrs Trump", with the queen consort and the heir apparent on both sides.
The seating arrangement creates some interesting groupings. There's the diplomatic representative the envoy flanked by Princess Anne on the left and the finance minister on the right.
The head of government Sir Keir Starmer is beside Stephen Schwarzman billionaire CEO of the investment firm group.
The opposition figure Kemi Badenoch is searching for inspiration, she's beside the AI executive, head of the tech company OpenAI.
The US Secretary of State the senator is present and Trump's special envoy the adviser. From the British government Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy are there.
Sports figure the champion and athlete the rowing star are part of the more prominent athletes at the event.
On the walls are royal portraits and suits of armour and the ceiling is adorned by the coats of arms of Knights of the Garter.
The banquet space was restored following the 1992 blaze. So maybe as with tales about the monarchy, it feels new and old at the same time.
Per the American journalists, the choice of music at the banquet reflects some of the president's favourites. Perhaps they have their own messages to the politicians listening.
The playlist features Nessun Dorma, meaning "none shall sleep" and the Rolling Stones classic.
