When a customer rang an Indian restaurant in Birmingham trying to make a booking, he might have thought that the voice on the other end of the phone sounded a little familiar.
He did not, however, guess that it was the Prince of Wales interrupting a royal engagement to answer the call.
To the hilarity of the owners of the Indian Streatery, William took the customer's booking, checking his name and what time they wanted to turn up.
But he had to inform him that they could not come immediately because the restaurant had visitors.
Just over half an hour later, when William and Kate had moved on to their next engagement in the city, Vinay Aggarwal and his wife Ankita Gulati turned up, totally oblivious to the fact that they had been talking to the prince earlier.
The call came towards the end of the visit at about 1.45pm when the prince and princess were about to be offered a selection of dishes to taste. "Should I take the order?" joked William.
Then, before anyone had time to react, he picked up the phone and started talking to Aggarwal. "Do we have a seat for two right now?” William asked Meena Sharma, head chef and co-owner with her husband Rakesh.
"Half past two?" he suggested to Aggarwal. "Does that work for you? No, apparently not right now.
"You’ve got a train at 3? If you could get in at half past two that would be fine. For two people? Maybe a quarter past two, and you could make the train at three?"
Meena Sharma, doing her best to keep a straight face, chipped in to say: "We have some guests in that are probably not going to leave by then. We don’t have any tables free."
The only glitch in an otherwise faultless performance was that William mangled the address of the restaurant, turning “Bennetts Hill” into something that sounded more like Benitsia Street. As he put the phone down and the restaurant erupted in laughter, the prince said: "I’ve probably sent him somewhere else in Birmingham."
But despite the misdirection, Aggarwal managed to find the place. "Oh! William took the call!" he said.
"I didn’t know at all. That is a surprise. I thought I had made a genuine booking."
Aggarwal, 32, a software engineer from Colindale, London, added: "I didn’t recognise his voice at all."
Sharma said afterwards: "I was just taken aback. I thought it was actually no one on the line, he was just making it up. He did it really well. But got the address completely wrong!”
The visit, which is part of a plan to visit different parts of the country before the Coronation, saw William and Kate try out their competitive Indian cooking skills by making rotis. William still harbours memories of the recent visit to Wales when his wife beat him in an exercise bike challenge - in heels.
The best one, said Meena Sharma, 63, would be offered a permanent job in the kitchen.
William, however, did not stand a chance. As he rolled his roti - his was red, with beetroot, while Kate's was green with spinach - it started going wrong from the start. "Oh! That didn’t go so well!" he said.
Normally the convention on royal visits is for the hosts to be very diplomatic about any efforts made by their royal visitors. Sharma, however, did not feel obliged to observe any such niceties.
Asked about William’s roti-making skills, she said: "Clearly Sir doesn’t have any at all. There were holes in there, and some of it was too thin. Some of it was too thick. But Ma'am’s skills were fantastic. I did say to her, you’ve got a job for life."
Also on evidence was William’s aversion to spice. As the couple arrived, Kate said "I love spice” while William said he was not so keen. "Catherine can eat it," he said. "I start sweating."
Accordingly, when they were offered dishes to taste, William’s bhel puri chaat - a spicy salad served in a papadum - come with less chilli and without coriander, which he also dislikes.
But he must have tried to wrong one because after trying a bite he coughed and said: "There is definitely some spice in that. Cor!"
He was also gracious enough to acknowledge that Kate's roti was clearly better than his effort. "I’m not trying my one!" he told her. "I'll try yours."
