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Donald Trump may be the pickiest eater in presidential history. From his insatiable love of fast food to preferring steaks smothered in ketchup, the Commander in Chief’s palate is comparable to a toddler’s. On a November 2025 episode of the Daily Beast podcast “Inside Trump’s Head,” journalists Joanna Coles and Michael Wolff discussed Trump’s eating habits. Trump is apparently unable to handle sophisticated meals, but the problem is not unique to the president. The White House as a whole serves surprisingly bad cuisine.
Throughout the podcast, Coles went over menus served at state dinners. In 2018, when President Emmanuel Macron of France dined at the White House, the kitchen served fine foods like spring lamb and Carolina golden rice. A dinner at Windsor Castle with King Charles in September 2025 featured organic Norfolk chicken ballotine wrapped in zucchini. Wolff noted Trump likely ate “not a lick” of such cuisine, instead having a burger beforehand and spending dinner picking at his food and chatting.
This is par for the course for Trump. Wolff noted Trump is so obsessed with fast food that passengers on Trump Force One often find bags of fast food waiting on their seats as a “perk” of the job. According to Wolff, Trump also has a habit of feasting on hot dogs on the golf course, and one thing Trump eats to satisfy his sweet tooth is vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Wolff interviewed Trump during his 2016 campaign and found ice cream and virtually nothing else in his freezer.
Fussy White House food is not exclusively a Trump problem
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At one point during the podcast, Michael Wolff outright states, “The food in the White House is terrible.” While it’s easy to attribute this to chefs catering to Trump, the problem goes deeper than that. Wolff notes White House food, especially meals made for guests, is “made-up food” or “banquet food,” fare he compares to what you find at weddings.
Wedding food does not exactly have the best reputation. When chefs are making food en masse and aiming to cater to multiple palates, speed and quantity often take priority over nuanced flavor. It’s possible this problem extends to state meals, where chefs are attempting to appeal to tastebuds spanning continents.
Wolff also believes private chefs are simply not that good, stating, “The reason they’re private chefs is because they can’t get a job in a restaurant.” If you look at White House meals, there’s a lot happening, perhaps too much happening. In 2019, when hosting Australia’s then-prime minister, Coles quipped the courses had “a lot of sauces going on.” The meal started off with sun choke ravioli and lemon Parmigiano-Reggiano sauce, food Wolff calls “literally something that nobody is going to eat,” before moving on to a main course of Dover sole with fennel mousseline with a rich hollandaise. These MadLibs-esque assortments of gourmet ingredients probably tend to result in a final product that is less than the sum of its parts.
Dining and Cooking