Elvis Presley’s Hyper-Specific Dinner Order Would Make Any Chef Cringe

While in a Las Vegas hotel, Elvis Presley had to double-check that his dinner order would result in an acceptable meal. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had specific tastes when it came to steak, and he would turn the meal away if it weren’t to his liking. The trouble was that his wording while ordering wasn’t exactly accurate. The way Elvis actually liked his steak cooked would be enough to send a chef into a rage. 

Elvis Presley had a specific dinner order in Las Vegas

From the moment Priscilla Presley met Elvis, she became accustomed to his taste in food. As they had their first-ever conversation, he worked his way through five bacon and mustard sandwiches. While on a trip with him to Las Vegas, she learned that he also had specific tastes when it came to his steak.

“Back at our suite, Elvis said, ‘I’m hungry. Joe, order me a steak, but make sure you tell them well done. What do you want, Honey?'” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “‘Hell, E,’ Joe said, ‘I always tell them well done.'”

This wasn’t precisely true, though. Elvis considered any steak that wasn’t brown all the way through to be raw. As a result, the people around him had to adjust their language when ordering for him.

“To Elvis, raw was slightly pink,” Priscilla wrote. “Everyone specified ‘burnt’ when ordering for him.”

What would Elvis Presley eat for dinner?

While Elvis ordered a steak from the hotel, his typical dinner was much simpler. When home at Graceland, he asked for peanut butter sandwiches while his entourage ordered steaks. Priscilla did not like this. 

“What was really outrageous,” she wrote, “was that the regulars were ordering sirloin steaks or prime ribs while Elvis usually ate hamburgers or peanut butter and banana sandwiches.”

As a result, Priscilla took control of the Graceland kitchen. She felt the meals should reflect Elvis’ tastes, not his friends’.

“I set down a policy of having one menu per meal, and anyone who didn’t like what was on it could go to a local restaurant,” she wrote. “This new edict resulted in much grumbling from the guys, but the cooks were relieved, and Vernon [Presley] sanctioned my decision.”

What was Elvis Presley’s last meal?

Elvis ate foods like banana pudding, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and the notorious Fool’s Gold sandwich, which was made up of a loaf of bread, a whole jar of peanut butter, a whole jar of grape jelly, and a pound of bacon. He had specific tastes that veered toward comfort food.

“He said that the only thing in life he got any enjoyment out of was eating,” his cook, Mary Jenkins Langston, said, per The New York Times. “And he liked his food real rich.”

While there are many stories of the extravagant meals he consumed, Elvis’ final meal was relatively ordinary. Per the Chicago Tribune, Elvis’ last meal before his death in 1977 was four scoops of ice cream and six chocolate chip cookies.