Dinner with Churchill

Dinners meant a lot to Churchill – a friend once said of him, “He is a man of simple tastes; he is quite easily satisfied with the best of everything.”

But meals were always more for him than just good food and fine wine. Over seventy years the dinner table became a stage for his own brilliant conversational talents, an intimate world in which both gossip and diplomatic secrets could be shared…

In this riveting, entertaining book, Cita Stelzer examines ten of the key dinners at which Churchill presided during WWII, and shows how in this crucial period he used his superlative social and rhetorical skills to bring about serious political change.

With fascinating new material on the food he ate, the champagnes he loved, as well as original menus, seating plans, and unpublished photographs, Dinner with Churchill is a sumptuous treat. It reveals the care with which Churchill planned his charm offensives against both friends, like Roosevelt, and enemies, like Stalin, on his favourite battlefield – a luxurious dining-room, primed and loaded, from soup to nuts, from cocktails to liqueurs.

‘Acutely revealing’
TLS

‘A must-read for Churchill connoisseurs, but general reader will find it entertaining too’
Standpoint

‘Dinner with Churchill… makes for hugely enjoyable reading, but there is a serious thesis lurking not to far behind the stories… An original take on (Churchill’s) exceptionally well-documented life might seem impossible. However, with this readable “gastrobiography” Stelzer has succeeded brilliantly in producing one.’
Sunday Times

“A delightful and delicious tribute to Churchill’s heroic appetite for wining, dining and politicking. ”
Ben Macintyre, author of Operation Mincemeat

“A delightful and fascinating book in which we are reminded that an evening dining with Churchill must have been one of the most memorable and enjoyable occasions one could have hoped for.”
Andrew Roberts

“Amusing and unpretentious... an entertaining assortment of Churchill anecdotes”
Evening Standard

About Cita Stelzer

A freelance editor and journalist, Cita Stelzer majored in history and went on to work for John Lindsay, mayor of New York and Governor Hugh Carey. She is currently a reader at Churchill College, Cambridge; and a director of the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum