Big Apple eatery offers coronation royal treatment

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Coronation of Charles III

To Angela Barbti and Georgette Roberts

May 6, 2023 | 11:21am

The Big Apple’s bars blared at the coronation of Charles III, and cocktails fit for royalty spread out at dawn.

A British-themed watering hole Churchill Tavern served a special breakfast from 6am to 8am, and expats and Britons began to flock before sunrise.

“To see all these people show up at 5:30 makes you very proud,” owner Scott Robertson told The Post. “Proud to be British.” . . it is part of history being made today.”

The tavern on East 28th Street served buffet-only, and patrons drank coronation quiches made with spinach, broad beans, and tarragon, served with sausage rolls and Scotch eggs.

Sweet treats on the menu included Victoria sponges with cream and strawberries and scones with either butter and jam or clotted cream and jam.

Royal mocktails named Elizabeth, Camilla, Margaret and Kate were served.

Guests wore flashy hats and helmets, some wearing crowns. One man proudly raised his fist.

Jonathan Hood, 36, wore a suit, top hat and pocket square made out of the British flag. “It’s an incredible privilege to be here and to meet so many British people. Even though you’re so far away, you feel at home,” he said. “This is what I want to pass on to my children and grandchildren in the years to come.”

A collective ‘awwww’ was heard the moment the image of Prince George, the 9-year-old son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, popped up.

British-born Kirsty Hawes and Claire Lambert, flight attendants for Virgin Atlantic, stopped at a bar during a layover in New York.

“We’ve seen the wedding, obviously we’ve seen the Queen’s passing and all, but now we can see the coronation,” Hawes said.

“I’m so happy to be here and I’m really, really happy to say that we’re celebrating it in New York. Papercutting of the new king.

British comfort restaurant Tea and Sympathy on Greenwich Avenue hired Maurice dancers to perform traditional British folk dances, and hired sword dancers and drag queens to keep up the morning party.

Ian Goodliffe, a London native and resident of the United States since 1980, was part of the celebration at a Greenwich Village eatery.

The 86-year-old remembers watching Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 when he was six years old.

Another reveler, Andrew Koza, recalled meeting Prince Charles once in the south of England.
“He’s great, shorter than I thought he was, but he’s a very, very nice guy,” said Koza, 48, from Sussex.

“My mother took me,” he said. “I saw the Queen. Of course I waved. It was important to me and I remembered it for the rest of my life. I wanted to see it.”

“I think it makes for a stronger bond than most,” he said. “This is what the British do a lot at home. All the pomp and ceremony is one of the things we do best.”