Brooklyn Beckham: A Renewed Appreciation for His Parents Two Years Post-Marriage

• Brooklyn Beckham: Dad taught me to cook, he was always in the kitchen Instead we were to discuss his latest culinary project, takes on classic British dishes in collaboration with Uber Eats. Beckham had discovered cooking during lockdown and, encouraged by his new bride, he posted some videos for his 2 million Instagram followers (today he has 16.5 million) of him frying a steak or spooning pasta sauce from a jar. Cookin’ with Brooklyn followed, a series of eight-minute episodes where he showed, for example, how to carve a hole in an £800 cheese wheel (it took half an hour) in which to then serve pasta to a rapturous Peltz. Each reportedly cost $100,000 to film and involved a team of 62 people. One of the family’s closest friends was Gordon Ramsay. Beckham said he hadn’t received any formal training but was obsessed with MasterClass online tutorials, which featured A-list experts in their field. As David’s career took the family all over the world, from Madrid to Miami, Beckham’s palate had refined, he said. “I didn’t use to like olives, zucchini, mushrooms, but I like them all now.” In a back-to-front baseball cap, vintage T-shirt and with heavily tattooed forearms (he has about 100, 70 of which are dedicated to his wife), Beckham was softly well-spoken, even if he did have the puzzling Gen Z habit of dropping his “gs” on the end of words, and scrupulously polite. He also had an air of vulnerability and was prone to take throwaway remarks very literally. He had a baby face. I said I couldn’t believe he was only 24, he’d had so many careers. “Do I look older?” he asked anxiously. Beckham’s conversation was full of soundbites that didn’t quite ring true. He declared that his favourite cuisine after Japanese (“I’ve always been obsessed with sushi”) was English and that his death-row meal would probably be pie and mash “with liquor, jellied eels”, although when pressed, he admitted, “I much prefer the mash.” Fish and chips were another favourite. “The best in England is when you go on the street and you find one of those guys who was selling the chips out of the newspaper…” • Where does Brooklyn’s explosive attack leave Brand Beckham? He proceeded to describe how the pride of his new range was his Breakfast Sandwich of Burford Browns, yet to the consternation of the PRs listening in, he then admitted he didn’t eat breakfast. “I don’t get hungry until late afternoon. I work out and then I usually don’t have lunch, I just have dinner,” he said. I assumed he’d be in a kitchen in London, actually confecting his chicken tikka masala and wagyu (why?) bolognese and heaping them on delivery bikes? Yet Beckham seemed astonished at the idea he might actually have to show up and chop a few onions. He had, though, “messaged all my mates telling them to order”. Did he use Uber Eats himself? “I’m on it all the time… I love looking at foods — it’s a weird thing.” Reading menus or looking at pictures of food? “Looking at pictures.” At the time two years had passed since Beckham and Peltz’s wedding, which Beckham has now fingered as the turning point in relations with his family, but there seemed no doubt that he was close to his parents and siblings. Although the only question his PR commanded him not to answer concerned whether he was competitive with David as to who was better — Beckham jokingly answered yes — he chatted away about how his father had taught him to cook. “My dad was always the one cooking in the house, my mum not so much. I just loved hanging out with him in the kitchen.” What was the first thing he cooked? “Probably Super Noodles, you can’t go wrong with Super Noodles.” His favourite dish to cook was spaghetti bolognese, he told me. “It’s my wife’s favourite thing that I cook … It means a lot to me just because my dad taught me how to make it when he was playing for AC Milan and we all went out there for a couple of months. It reduces down for 12 hours and smells out the whole house.” As for his siblings, Romeo, who is now 23, Cruz, 20, and Harper, 14, now apparently blocked on Instagram, “they weren’t into cooking when they were younger but now it’s really fun just because when I do go to London or when they come out here we always cook together. “We never say it’s like a competition, even though we give each other a bit of stick about it — that’s just what brothers do. All of us in the kitchen. Just listening to music, cooking together, it’s fun.” The previous night he had been out in LA with Cruz, enjoying ramen “on a Japanese street” and they had watched the Bradley Cooper film Burnt. • Brooklyn Beckham: Victoria hijacked first dance at my wedding Beckham said he preferred foodie films to cookery programmes. “And my dad’s favourite film is Chef, so every Christmas we watch that.” What about Ratatouille, with its dreams-can-come-true narrative about a rat who dreams of becoming a chef? “That’s me and my wife’s favourite film! We love it!” The ratio of mentions of his family to Nicola was about five to one. Could Nicola cook? “Not to save her life!” Normally Beckham produced something. “But sometimes she has a dinner meeting, sometimes I have a dinner meeting. I always know exactly what I’m doing and I’m always busy, which I like. “When I’m in London it’s more about hangin’ out with my family.” He told me he still had a room in the family home in Holland Park and laughed uproariously at my joke that Victoria might have turned it into a walk-in wardrobe. “I really love London, I go back as much as I can,” he continued, dreamily. “I miss pub culture, just sittin’ there with a pint, vibin’ out and havin’ fun, really.” When asked to choose between Miami (where the Peltz clan is based) and the Cotswolds,, he firmly replied: “Cotswolds.” After the interview friends and acquaintances who knew the Beckhams bombarded me with anecdotes. Those who had worked with Beckham in various capacities were appalled at how long it took him to complete the most basic task. A former magazine employee who had been close to Victoria recalled her being drunk at a party, ranting about how she didn’t know what to do with her eldest son as he showed no direction. My takeaway was that Beckham was an insecure man who could have been very happy doing a job suited to his capabilities, but who had instead perpetually been shoehorned into a narrative of Beckham exceptionalism and made a laughing stock. “I have been controlled by my parents for most of my life,” he wrote on Instagram this week, then added, “I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.” I’m delighted for him.