“You could see the positivity in their relationship, the love,” Chef Vikram Vij of Vij’s restaurant in Vancouver tells PEOPLE of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were “extremely friendly” during a “fun” double date with Michael Bublé and his wife, Luisana Lopilato, according to Chef Vikram Vij of Vij’s in Vancouver, Canada.
The restaurateur spoke with PEOPLE about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s time at the restaurant with Bublé, 48, and Lopilato, 36, on Thursday — ahead of the singer’s fun day with the couple at the Invictus Games One Year to Go celebration a day later.
“They were extremely friendly and nice,” Chef Vij says, also revealing that the group arrived at around 7 p.m. local time and stayed for three hours.
“They came and spoke to the kitchen staff, they were very respectful to let me choose the meal as the chef,” he explains. “I said I was going to put something together for them. I asked them if there were any allergies or any things that she didn’t feel like having, and Meghan said, ‘I love spicy food.’ ”
The chef also details that the group enjoyed “three or four appetizers” he crafted “using local produce … obviously with some Indian spices.”
“Michael Bublé loved the mushrooms, for example, and Harry loved the kebabs. I got them some market chard that [Meghan] loved.”
Along with the delicious appetizers, Chef Vij also prepared a host of main dishes for the group, including, “a lamb popsicle, which is like a rack of lamb and with marinated mustard and sweet white wine in a fenugreek cream curry,” which, he explains, he had had previously cooked for Prince William and Kate Middleton during their visit to Vancouver in 2016.
“It was a very big deal for me to say, ‘Hey, this is what your brother loved, and I think you should try this dish,’ ” Chef Vij says, before revealing that Prince Harry, 39, “absolutely loved” the meal.
Meghan, 42, meanwhile, asked for extra chili to spice up her food, and tried the goat meat, Chef Vij says.
The group also tried other dishes, including potato cream curry and little black chickpea cakes, which were served with rice and naan. “They even actually asked for more bread or naan bread,” the chef tells PEOPLE.
When it came to beverages, Chef Vij says that Prince Harry sampled Vij’s gin in a gin and tonic, while Meghan had “a couple of cocktails.”
