King Charles joined by the Beckhams as Highgrove becomes Italian restaurant for the night

The King (left) chats to David and Victoria Beckham as they arrive at Highgrove for the monarch’s special Anglo-Italian dinner. Photo / Getty Images

Helen Mirren, Stanley Tucci and Donatella Versace among guests at special meal to celebrate slow food and Anglo-Italian ties.

David and Victoria Beckham were surprise guests at the King’s black tie dinner to celebrate Anglo-Italian relations and the benefits of “slow” food and fashion.

The Beckhams dined at Highgrove, the monarch’s Gloucestershire home, on Friday evening alongside Donatella Versace, the Italian fashion designer, and Dame Helen Mirren, the Oscar-winning actress.

Beckham, the former England footballer, was last year announced as an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, the charity that runs Highgrove.

He and his wife, a former Spice Girl turned fashion designer, also own an estate nearby in the Cotswolds which they have renovated with touches often seen in rustic Italian villas.

The couple has had ties to Italy since David Beckham was first loaned to AC Milan, and they are known to regularly holiday there and attend fashion shows.

Stanley Tucci, the Italian-American actor, was also among the 80 guests gathered for the unique meal designed to champion both the importance of homegrown, seasonal British produce and authentic Italian flavours.

King Charles (left) then greeted actor Stanley Tucci (right) who was seated at the monarch’s table for the dinner. Photo / Getty Images

In a short speech, the King expressed delight that his “niche” passion for slow food was finally gathering momentum as he described how food choices helped to define cultures and bring people together.

He warned that the way food was produced was “intimately entwined” with the future of the planet.

Also among the guests was Carlo Petrini, the food writer who founded the slow food movement in Italy in 1986 after campaigning against the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna.

The King’s passionate defence of the movement came more than two decades after he delivered a landmark speech in Turin, Italy, in which he warned that the “industrialisation of agriculture and the homogenisation of food” had “invaded almost all areas” of modern life.

He said: “I can scarcely believe that it is over 21 years since I spoke at Carlo Petrini’s Terra Madre conference in Turin – dedicated to the cause of slow food which Italians have long pioneered.

“I am delighted that in the intervening two decades, a subject which was perhaps a niche interest is now at the heart of discussions about a sustainable future for our planet.”

The monarch has long been friends with Petrini after they bonded over their shared passion for all things organic and their mutual determination to shift public attitudes over food.

The Italian activist once said he considered Charles “the patron of the slow food movement, our spiritual guide”, describing him as a “visionary”.

He said in 2007: “People thought he was just romantic, a poet, and that his approach wouldn’t have any economic impact; but his way is the only salvation for the planet.”

Helen Mirren (left), David Beckham and wife Victoria Beckham chat to Queen Camilla (far right) as they wait to be seated. Photo / Getty Images

For his part, the King has paid tribute to Petrini’s “extraordinary vision and indomitable spirit”, which he said had helped to “begin a revolution which will benefit small farmers the world over”.

Tucci and his friend, Calabrian chef Francesco Mazzei, painstakingly designed a menu for the King’s event that was a masterclass in culinary diplomacy.

While each course was traditionally Italian, almost every ingredient was produced in Britain, painstakingly sourced over many months from Scotland to Somerset.

Guests dined on canapes including Yorkshire Pecorino cheese puffs and British vegetables, caponata tartelletta, Scottish crab panzanella, ravioli made with Westcombe ricotta and Suffolk red porchetta.

The King, who can speak several languages, spoke briefly in Italian as he welcomed them to Highgrove, describing how the event brought together “two things very dear to my heart – slow food and Italy”.

“Our two nations share so many ties – between our peoples; between our cultures; a deep friendship rooted in shared values, mutual affection and mutual respect,” he said.

“A nation’s food culture is a priceless social and environmental asset, intimately bound up with its sense of identity and place.

“Good food brings people together and what we choose to eat helps to define us – as families, communities and nations. It brings us sustenance, but also comfort. It binds generations, as recipes are passed down from one to another. It is a thing of beauty – ‘edible art’, as you have put it, Stanley!”

The King was seated between Italian ambassador Inigo Lambertini and Tucci’s wife Felicity Blunt, the sister of actress Emily Blunt, while the Queen sat next to Tucci.

David (left) and Victoria Beckham (right) in their glamorous attire for the dinner at Highgrove. Photo / @victoriabeckham

The tables were laden with fresh seasonal flowers and napkin rings made by King’s Foundation student milliners who had been invited to demonstrate their skills in millinery, embroidery, and sustainable fashion design.

Mazzei said he had poured heart and soul into the menu, travelling the length and breadth of the UK to source every ingredient before compiling a detailed report for the royal chef and urging him to show it to the King.

“I was in Devon two weeks ago to get the salumi,” he said. “I went to see the pigs where the belly comes from.

“The tomatoes for the passata are from the Isle of Wight. The cob nuts for the biscotti are from Kent.”

Meanwhile, mixologist Alessandro Palazzi served James Bond-inspired martinis.

The event came ahead of the King and Queen’s state visit to Italy and the Vatican in early April, when they will undertake engagements in both Rome and the north eastern city of Ravenna, known for its early Christian mosaic artwork.

The couple will meet the Pope at the Vatican and celebrate the Catholic Church’s Pilgrims of Hope jubilee year, attending the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic Church.

The King said that to say they were looking forward to the visit “would be to engage in a little British understatement…”

He proposed a toast to “Italy’s timeless food culture, so loved here in the United Kingdom and across the world”.