EXCLUSIVE Can YOU guess what links this waitress to the Royal family? Woman working in London restaurant with society links to Princess Margaret

Daily Mail​

01-06-2025

As she scurries about carrying plates and clearing tables, dressed simply in a shirt, tie and waistcoat with a starched apron tied around her waist, you'd never believe that this busy waitress has Royal connections.
To her partner - and co-owner of their restaurant The Yellow Bittern - she's simply Frances, but to those familiar with the offshoots of the Windsor family tree, she's Lady Frances von Hofmannsthal.
Lady Frances née Armstrong-Jones is the youngest daughter of Lord Snowdon, the former husband of Princess Margaret, and Lucy Hogg, the woman he wed shortly after finalising his divorce. Frances was born seven months later.
Photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones was given the peerage of Lord Snowdon in 1961, a year after marrying the late Queen's younger sister. The couple went on to welcome two children, David, 63, and Lady Sarah Chatto, 61, the only maternal cousins of King Charles and his three siblings.
But only three-and-a-half miles away from Buckingham Palace, on the somewhat grimy Caledonian Road behind King's Cross, you'll find their half-sibling hard at work at one of London 's most controversial eateries.
Opened in October 2024 by the 45-year-old with her partner, chef Hugh Corcoran, 35, and bookseller Oisín Davies, 33, The Yellow Bittern has managed to divide London's restaurant critics.
With just 18 seats, you can only book in for one of the two Monday to Friday lunchtime sittings by telephone or postcard, and don't even try to settle the bill with your phone, it's a strictly cash only establishment.
There is no menu. Just a chalkboard with a short list of dishes that is changed daily.
On one day this week there were some interesting cuisine on offer.
To start: radishes with butter; crab mayonnaise; artichokes a la barigoule [that's small artichokes braised in a light stock with carrots, onion and hidden mushrooms]; mussels in cream, white wine and spring onion; and chicken and broad bean vol-au-vent.
Prices range between £9 and £18. Bread and butter costs £6.
And for main course: roast chicken; beef stew and mash; and Dublin Coddle [this is the Yellow Bittern's trademark dish. It looks like an artisan sausage drowning in a bowl surrounded by onions, carrots, potatoes and herbs].
These cost £25 or £28.
Deserts include classics crème brulee and chocolate soufflé but also rhubarb and apple tart and strawberries in red wine, priced at £9 or £10.
And then there's the now infamous Irish cheeses at £16 a plate.
Need something to wash it down with? The wine list is stored in Corcoran's head, and after becoming somewhat of an expert during a tenure in Paris, he'll tell you what you'll be having from his 'coveted' wine list. And that's £10 a glass or £60-£65 a bottle.
Meanwhile across the Caledonian Road tattooed men clutching hard-hats are downing pints of cold lager as enjoy their lunch-hour. Around the corner one man is comatose under a blanket, while another pleads incoherently for money as the sits by the door of a Sainsbury local shop.
Two streets away two men are sitting against a wall surrounded by a cloud of bitter smelling smoke. Their eyes are both glazed and wide-open at the same time.
At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking Frances and Hugh's romance is a classic example of 'opposites attract'.
She grew up in the heart of British high society - official photos from her older half-sister Lady Sarah Chatto's wedding show her sharing bridesmaid duties with Zara Phillips and posing next to the Queen Mother, Princes Charles and Edward - and he is a Belfast-born Irish republican who dreams of cooking for the RMT trade unionists who have an office round the corner from their tiny restaurant.
But while their backgrounds differ, their approach to enjoying life - and their reverence for a leisurely midday meal - is remarkably similar.
Inspired by the joy of a long, boozy lunch, in 2017 Frances founded food and lifestyle magazine Luncheon, a highly regarded periodical which presents its readers with a smorgasbord of high culture, food, and interesting conversation.
There are definitely parallels to be drawn between what she publishes and the vibe of the famous parties thrown by her father and his first wife in Kensington Palace's Apartment 1A from the start of their relationship until their divorce in 1978.
Chain-smoking Princess Margaret was renowned for holding court with some of the era's most fashionable and sharp-tongued names, as well as many of her husband's flamboyant friends from the arts.
However, Frances' tastes seem to be decidedly more lowkey. She told Vogue Italia that Gavin and Stacey star James Corden would be one of her 'ideal guests' at her perfect lunch.
She added that she sees Luncheon, which is now based in the same building as The Yellow Bittern, as 'a cocktail of images, photographs, designs and illustrations. And lots of conversations between, maybe, a ninety-year-old artist and a twenty-year-old photographer. Beauty is born out of this type of mix. We like the idea of creating something unique, of looking at, reading, rereading and preserving.
'It's all very random, the ideas are born spontaneously at a party, at an exhibition, or with someone I meet by chance. I want the spirit of the magazine to remain free, just like what happens during a lunch; you never know who is seated next to you and what you'll talk about.'
This week Lady Frances floated between the handful of tables at this intimate eatery while her firebrand Irish chef partner Hugh picked up casserole lids to stir the pot.
At one table an aging theatre director was waxing lyrical about his latest project to his lunchtime companion, an aging actor.
Opposite, two young men with foppish hair in their late teens wearing Levi jeans, baggy t-shirts and expensive trainers chatter away.
Next to them, a man in his late 20's and his together-forever girlfriend nuzzled each other between sips of chilled white wine, that Hugh has just poured them.
Lady Frances even offered a sigh of sympathy to another diner, as he announced that his lunch guest 'cannot make it'.
Lord Snowdon's zest for life and learning about people didn't fade away once he had left the confines of the Palace. Growing up, Frances recalls being invited into her father's home photography studio to meet the subject of the day - it might have been Margaret Thatcher or Tom Cruise - and joining them for a chat.
She told Vogue Italia: 'I grew up in the house where my father had his studio (I'd come home from school and if the red light was on above the door I had to be absolutely silent). Every time he'd finish shooting, he'd call me in to meet his subject. They would all sit at the kitchen table, my father, the assistants, collaborators and that day's actor or actress.'
With her lifelong involvement in his work, it was fitting that Lord Snowdon, who passed away aged 86 in 2017 from kidney failure, entrusted Frances to help him manage his archive and exhibitions, and gave her a key position at the Snowdon Trust.
The year prior to his death, Frances launched her eponymous fashion label, selling smock coats at trendy Dover Street Market which had linings inspired by the wallpaper in her father's studio.
She told ES Magazine that she had become a designer with zero formal training, admitting 'no nine to five, no degree, nothing. I just have a background of... life, I suppose.'
During the 1990s, three hundred miles away in the decidedly less stellar setting of North Belfast, Corcoran was also learning about what makes for the perfect get together.
He told The Irish Independent: 'As a young child, I remember coming down to a tablecloth littered with glasses from the night before; the link between food and wine and having a good time was established in my mind at an early age.'
His parents, Moya, a North Yorkshire born left-winger and Jack, an Irish mechanic, nurtured the young Hugh and his brother, also called Jack, on a diet of hearty home cooked meals, which were dished up with even bigger portions of Irish nationalism and talk of trade unions over the dinner table.
He added: 'My mother was always a good, hearty, simple cook and a very good gardener; she still grows vegetables and flowers. She is my primary inspiration, her food was always about nourishment. Her attitude to hospitality was that everyone was welcome to stay and eat and drink at the table.
'My father was an adventurous cook. I remember him making squid ink pasta and conger eel in red wine; we had Elizabeth David's books in the house and he was interested in those.'
Described widely by the restaurant press as a 'Communist', Corcoran has done little to quash the narrative.
Back at the little restaurant, Lady Frances appears to be very much at home.
She smiles as she places white plates packed with haut-cuisine on to the white tablecloth, next to the cream real-linen napkins.
No glass goes completely dry before she is standing next to one of the four tables, asking gently; 'Would you like anything else?'
As the first sitting comes to an end Lady Frances, Hugh Corcoran and his assistant gather at the little kitchen at the end of the small room, where their gastronomic achievements wait to be served at the second sitting.
This tiny one-room, no menu restaurant, may not be a banqueting hall, but Lady Frances' charm in the dining room and Hugh's skill with the pots and pans have created a truly royal eating experience.