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This formal dinner represents the grand highlight of a official trip, a opulent feast complete with addresses, formal greetings, musical flourishes and fancy cuisine and beverages.

This is statecraft served up with fine dining. A cut-glass impressive approach to hospitality meant to make a visiting leader feel special.

The venue in the grand hall within Windsor Castle is a breathtaking scene, a mix of medieval banquet and Harry Potter film.

Ornately dressed servers around the hall are as disciplined as the soldiers that were on parade earlier. The table settings, five glasses per person, are terrifyingly neat.

Menu Highlights

For the visit, the 160 guests, using over a thousand items of silverware, are served from a bill of fare, written in French, which includes:

• Hampshire Watercress Panna Cotta accompanied by cheese crisps and miniature egg dish
• Free-range poultry roulade wrapped in courgettes and a thyme and savoury sauce
• Frozen vanilla dome containing berry ice interior with gently cooked Victoria plums

Guests have a extensive wine list:

• Wiston Estate, Blend, Vintage
• Domaine Bonneau de Martray, Corton-Charlemagne, Year
• Ridge Vineyards, Monte Bello, 2000
• Champagne house, Prestige cuvée, 1998

Post-meal beverages are drowning in meaning. It's a 1945 vintage port, marking the 45th US president, even though he does not drink alcohol.

There's also a century-old brandy, from the birth year of the president's Scotland-native mother.

If that doesn't seem enough, there's a special cocktail, the International sour mix, which blends Johnnie Walker with the bright citrus of orange preserve, topped with pecan foam and a caramelized confection on a biscuit.

Attendees

The dinner is noticeably lacking celebrity faces or screen stars. Did some people in Hollywood who discovered they were needed somewhere else?

There's not even regular royal event guests like Sir David Beckham or Sir Elton John.

Rather, the guest list is heavy on government figures and tech bros. Tech CEO Tim Cook is there, seated beside the president's daughter the former first daughter.

Media magnate the news tycoon is placed alongside the opposition leader's key adviser Morgan McSweeney. The small talk must be engaging given current lawsuits.

Like at a wedding, guests must be checking the nameplates along the elaborately set table to identify who they're sitting beside.

The center of attention is centrally located for the castle dinner, with the monarch and guest of honor in the middle of a banquet table that is over 150 feet in length.

The visiting leader, as the honored invitee, is placed between King Charles and Catherine, the Princess of Wales.

Facing them is the first lady, whose nameplate that says "Mrs Trump", with the queen consort and the Prince of Wales on either side.

Placement at the table creates some notable pairings. There's the diplomatic representative Warren Stephens with the royal princess on one side and the finance minister on the other.

Prime Minister the Labour leader is beside the investment CEO mega-wealthy CEO of the investment firm group.

The opposition figure Kemi Badenoch is seeking ideas, she's beside the AI executive, chief executive of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.

America's top diplomat the senator is there and Trump's special envoy the adviser. From the British government Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy are in attendance.

Sports figure the champion and Olympian Dame Kathleen Grainger are part of the more prominent athletes at the banquet.

Throughout the hall are royal portraits and suits of armour and the ceiling is adorned by the heraldic symbols of Knights of the Garter.

St George's Hall was restored after the fire of 1992. So perhaps like many stories about the royals, it feels new and old at the same time.

According to the American journalists, the choice of music at the banquet includes some of the president's favourites. Perhaps they have their own messages to the politicians listening.

The playlist features the operatic aria, meaning "none shall sleep" and the Rolling Stones classic.