The Vogue editor-in-chief joins Victoria Beckham, Prince Harry and Justin Bieber on the list of celebrities with a peculiar taste

‘Wintour’s go-to order sounds like a joyless dish, if ever there was one’ CREDIT: Gilbert Carrasquillo

It’s a classic Italian salad consisting of mozzarella slices, juicy tomatoes, a generous scattering of basil leaves and a glug of olive oil, seasoned with a little salt and perhaps drizzled with balsamic.

The distinctive red, white and green tricolore insalata caprese is said to have originated in Capri in the 1920’s, and has been adored for its perfect simplicity ever since.

That is, by all except Dame Anna Wintour, 72, that most iconic arbiter of good taste and one of the most powerful figures in fashion. Allegedly, she prefers hers – sharp intake of breath – without tomatoes.

Bewilderingly, a new biography of the Vogue editor-in-chief has revealed that Wintour’s go-to lunch every day at publishing house Condé Nast’s offices in New York was a steak and (modified) caprese salad from the nearby restaurant Palm.

Of all the revelations that author Amy Odell unearthed, this particular detail is perhaps the most inexplicable. After all, a caprese salad without tomatoes is, at best, a plate of blandly unaccompanied cheese. The meal would apparently have been collected for Wintour from the restaurant on a proper plate by her “second assistant” and brought to her offices.

So bemused by the disclosure of Wintour’s tomato-less caprese was New York food and fashion writer Emilia Petrarca that she took it upon herself to order the dish.

Wintour’s tomato-less caprese was often delivered to her by her second assistant CREDIT: Getty Images

After tax and a tip, it set Petrarca back $77.33. She reports on New York food website Grub Street that compositionally, something was missing (the colour red). Without tomatoes and paired with a hunk of steak, she says, “the experience felt a little like stuffing cotton balls in my mouth”. Wintour’s go-to order sounds like a joyless dish, if ever there was one.

It’s eerily reminiscent of a quote by Emily Blunt’s character in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, which parodies the habits of glossy magazine diet culture: “I’m on this new diet. Well, I don’t eat anything and when I feel like I’m about to faint I eat a cube of cheese. I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.”

Apparently, Wintour follows a high protein diet, as a rule: lots of meat, no carbs, burgers without buns, and breakfasts of salmon and eggs. Her preferred dish to serve at fashion parties is chicken pot pie. The new book also reveals that Wintour banned chives, garlic, onions and parsley from the Met Gala, due to an aversion to bad breath.

Her reason for omitting tomatoes will perhaps forever remain a mystery – but she’s not the only celebrity to have a rather particular restaurant order…

Nine of the most unusual celebrity food orders 

Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen is not often seen dining at restaurants, but a firm favourite when she does is Bellamy’s, a French brasserie in Mayfair, where she once reportedly tucked into 25 grams of oscietra caviar to start when dining out with Princess Anne and Princess Alexandra.

Victoria Beckham 

Beckham demanded that her food be sent back and remade – with three less chips CREDIT: Getty Images

The story, possibly apocryphal, goes that some years ago Posh Spice went for dinner at Langan’s Brasserie (in its first incarnation). She ordered steak, which came with chips. The chef carefully arranged nine chips in a stack. The plate was sent back to the kitchen with the request that it be remade and served, this time with just six chips. (Presumably leaving three chips uneaten was not an option.)

The (divorcing) Hollywood pair are said to be partial to a curry in Surrey, and reportedly once managed to spend £2,000 on a meal at Mogul in Bagshot, a smart, contemporary curry house serving Indian staples and Bangladeshi fish dishes (Russell Crowe is also a fan). Enam Ali, owner of Le Raj restaurant in Epsom Downs, reputedly believes that Jolie and Pitt once ordered a takeaway of lamb bhuna, chicken korma, chicken tikka masala and Kingfisher beer from his restaurant, and had it flown out to America. A korma from Bagshot was not enough to keep the relationship alive.

Prince Harry

The In-N-Out burger chain is frequented by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, who go to their local outlet between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Apparently, Harry has memorised the fast food chain’s secret menu, which includes “animal fries” – classic fries topped with a spread of sweet pickle relish, ketchup, mayonnaise, white vinegar and sugar, plus a slice of cheese and chopped grilled onion.

Justin Bieber

When teen idol Justin Bieber decided to pop into The Kings Oak pub in Epping Forest on tour in the UK, he ordered salmon and mash, washed down with a glass of semi-skimmed milk. When the milk glass was listed on eBay, bids reached £66,000.

Princess Diana

Princess Diana’s favourite dessert was famously a crepe soufflé CREDIT: PA Images

In the 1990s, Launceston Place in Kensington was one of Princess Diana’s favourite places to eat, on account of its discreet small rooms and its cheese soufflé, which was named in her honour. Her favourite dessert was famously a crepe soufflé – a bread and butter soufflé topped with apricot jam.

AA Gill

The late, great restaurant critic was a regular at The Wolseley, his favourite restaurant, where he would repeatedly order eggs benedict – “the Marilyn Monroe of brunch”. Dame Joan Collins is also a regular, and deems the soufflé Suisse the best thing on offer in the whole of London.

Nicholas Coleridge MBE

Like Wintour, Nicholas Coleridge is a Condé Nast power player, as the president of Condé Nast International and chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Coleridge estimates that he ate at St James’s restaurant Le Caprice (now closed) over 600 times. He would order either crispy duck and watercress salad, sashimi, steak tartare or a Caprice burger – served with a “bullshot” (vodka and beef consommé). He likes the meaty tipple ice-cold, but with no ice.

Edward Enninful OBE

In a “Lunch with the FT” interview, Edward Kobina Enninful, the editor-in-chief of British Vogue, revealed that he visits Pizza East in Portobello “five or six times a week”. Rather than pizza, he ordered salt-baked salmon, saffron rice and butternut squash salad during his FT lunch.