Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrate Meghan’s 42nd birthday at Montecito restaurant

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were spotted leaving a celebrity hotspot restaurant in Montecito, California on Wednesday night (2 August), ahead of Meghan Markle’s birthday today (Friday 4 August).

In photos obtained by The Daily Mail, the couple were seen leaving the Italian restaurant Tre Lune and were accompanied by their friend Matt Cohen.

The outing served as a pre-birthday celebration for Meghan, who turns 42 today.

Meghan wore a strapless black and white striped dress from premium clothing brand Posse, which retails at $239 (£187), paired with a clutch bag and flat strappy black sandals, while Harry wore a light blue shirt and white linen trousers.

Famous faces including Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Kourtney Kardashian and her husband Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, as well as American actor Kevin Costner, have been spotted at the celebrity hotspot restaurant in recent months.

The restaurant serves starter courses from $15, with main courses including a seafood pasta dish for $48 and a fillet steak served on a bed of rocket salad for $65.

This year marks a very different birthday for the royal couple, following their step back from royal duties in 2020 and the release of Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare earlier this year, in which the duke made several accusations about his fraught relationship with senior members of the royal family.

Last year, William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, along with King Charles and Queen Camilla, publicly shared birthday wishes for Meghan on social media. At the time of writing, the official Twitter accounts for the King or Prince William have not wished the duchess a happy birthday.

In June, there was radio silence from senior members of the royal family on social media as Harry and Meghan’s daughter, Princess Lilbet, celebrated her second birthday.

It was announced on Wednesday that Prince Harry and Meghan had surprised a group of young leaders in the tech world with congratulatory phone calls, thanking them for their work.

The couple personally called several recipients of the first-ever Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund grants. Accordion to the youth fund, which was founded by the Archwell Foundation, the philanthropic initiative has awarded $2m in grants to “intergenerationally led organisations shaping the responsible technology movement”.

As they proceeded to make phone calls to grant recipients in a video, the royal couple gave a sweet shoutout to their four-year-old son, Archie, and two-year-old daughter, Lilibet.

“Thank you for doing everything that you do, our kids especially are incredibly grateful,” Harry said on the phone, while speaking to a woman named Sneha, who is a part of youth-led coalition Encore Justice.

Meghan chimed in to acknowledge that when her children get older, they’ll be grateful for the work that these young leaders have done. “They don’t know it yet, but they will,” she added.