Meghan Markle may say that her new Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan,” is about the “joy of hostessing” and making other people feel special.
But pretty brutal reviews from U.S. and U.K. outlets argue that Meghan’s eight-part, “ego trip” of a show actually follows a more self-serving format. Perhaps knowing that “the world has decided to find her annoying,” the American wife of Prince Harry shows a clear “hunger” to be liked, one of two scathing reviews in The Guardian said. Meghan tries to satisfy this need by inviting one celebrity guest after another into a luxury, “made-for-TV” California kitchen — masquerading as the one in her own Montecito mansion — to have them tell her “how amazing she is,” added another review from The Telegraph.
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For some reason, the Bay Area’s Alice Waters goes along with this format, which Variety said plays out “like a forced march.” “At the price of getting to share an afternoon” with the Duchess of Sussex, Waters and other guests must “praise her first,” the Hollywood industry bible said.
Meghan’s segment with Waters concludes with the Chez Panisse chef agreeing that their respect and appreciation “is mutual.” Earlier, Waters is seen in a spasm of ecstasy after the aspiring lifestyle guru shows an intensely yellow egg yolk that came from one her famous rescue chickens.
After Meghan cracks open one of her eggs to whisk into a tomato quiche, she holds up the bowl to Waters. “Isn’t that spectacular?”
Waters’ hands fly up her cheeks, like Macaulay Culkin’s scream face, and proclaims: “Oh my God.”
“I know,” Meghan says.
“I have never seen that color. Ever!” Waters adds.
The premise of the Waters’ segment is that the chef visits Meghan’s faux kitchen to help her prepare a simple salad and quiche for “a little celebration brunch” with family and friends — that the former TV actor is throwing for herself. (Waters, though, doesn’t appear in later scenes of that celebration; didn’t she get invited?)
Once Waters enters the kitchen, Meghan love-bombs her, saying that her own views about cooking, gardening and California fine living were “adopted” from the chef’s pioneering emphasis on fresh, seasonable ingredients and sustainability. At one point, Meghan takes Waters into what may or may not be her own garden to pick some lettuce, and encourages the chef to hug one of her rosemary bushes. “I love it,” Meghan says. “Instead of a tree hugger, a rosemary hugger!”
A person holds a smartphone displaying Netflix’s new Meghan Markle show, “With Love, Meghan”, in front of a TV screen showing footage of the show, in Los Angeles, March 4, 2025. Meghan Markle makes her Netflix comeback with a new lifestyle series that paints a rosy picture of domestic life. (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
To some, Meghan cheering on Waters’ rosemary-hugging could been seen as the apotheosis of West Coast foodie pretentiousness, if the chef didn’t appear so sincere in her affections. Meghan also basks in the large kitchen garden, with its professionally tended raised beds. But she cites Waters’ advocacy of urban gardening to encourage ordinary people “in flats in London” or “small apartments in the city” to garden. Waters agrees, saying: “I think we have to plant wherever we can, even it’s on a window sill.”
Waters also gets excited to see that Meghan’s faux kitchen is equipped with a particular Japanese mortar-and-pestle set that she can use to mash garlic for the salad dressing. The chef also appears heartened to hear that the duchess followed her example about using an “enticing” lidded, copper bin for composting – not the “unattractive” plastic ones people get from their local waste management service. But one wonders if even Waters thinks Meghan’s love-bombing gets a bit excessive when the duchess suggests that the chef invented the idea of rolling up washed-lettuce in both a paper and cloth towel to dry.
A big theme of Meghan’s cooking segments involves “day drinking,” as The Guardian writer Jess Cartner-Morley wrote. So, the duchess pours herself and Waters big glasses of rose, as she puts the quiche together. While Waters jokes that drinking while cooking can be “dangerous,” Meghan quips, “Don’t you think that helps with (cooking) being so intuitive?”
The two laugh knowingly.
The Guardian’s Cartner-Morley said that Meghan’s show might be more accurately called, “Please Love Me, Love Meghan,” while Variety’s Daniel D’Addario has this to say about her self-absorption: “‘With Love, Meghan’ is made with a great deal of love — in the sense that the greatest love of all is the one that a person has for herself.”
Other critics, mostly from the U.K. where Meghan is less popular, are having a good laugh at some of her affectations and “surreal pantry porn,” wrote Cartner-Morley for The Guardian, which in the past has been pretty friendly to Meghan and Harry’s complaints about the British royal family.
Meghan’s talk about matching her outfits to the Le Creuset also received mention from Anita Singh of The Telegraph. Mostly, Meghan comes across as “thirsty” while starring in a “pointless,” “gormless” show, as Stuart Heritage, another critic for The Guardian, wrote. Even America’s Vogue magazine, usually glowing in its coverage of Meghan, said the show rings of “inauthenticity” and borrows a California aesthetic that’s already been mastered by other brands, like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Good or Flamingo Estate. The fashion magazine said the show is mostly useful for seeing what “quiet luxury” outfits Meghan wears.
And, yet, Meghan’s interactions with people like Waters are likely to please her ardent fans, as the chef joins the other guests in validating her wonderfulness. As of Wednesday morning, the show has cracked the Top 10 TV shows in the United States a day after premiering.
After Meghan and Harry dramatically fled British royal life, she has struggled to remake herself as a media mogul and global thought leader. In this phase of her struggle, Meghan is trying to launch herself as a Martha Stewart- or Paltrow-style lifestyle guru by hosting a TV show while simultaneously hawking a new brand of jams and other home products. While Meghan has insisted that she doesn’t want to be called an “influencer,” but an “entrepreneur,” she can celebrate receiving validation from Waters, who could be seen as one of America’s original lifestyle influencers.
Waters offers perhaps her most important validation after Meghan pulls the quiche out of the oven and the two women dig into slices, made with those deeply yellow yolks. “It’s perfect,” Waters says, patting the duchess on the back. “We need to make this at Chez.”
